Our Research Securing the food supply with sustainable packaging

Piles of used food packaging waste.

Principal Investigator

Bradley Olsen

Professor of Chemical Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering
Alexander and I. Michael Kasser (1960) Professor
Graduate Admissions Co-Chair

Professor Olsen earned his S.B. in Course 10 (Chemical Engineering) from MIT in June 2003 and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Berkley in December 2007. Olsen’s interest in polymer science has been longstanding, starting with a high school science fair project on conductive dendrimer films. His current research interests are broadly clustered in the areas of soft condensed matter physics and macromolecular physics, including liquid crystals, biomaterials, colloids, and polymers. He is particularly interested in how biosynthesis can be used as a natural green chemistry for the preparation of designer polymeric materials, how controlled polymerization through biology can give us unique materials that provide insight into polymer physics, and the unique physics of self-assembly in complex protein nanostructures for biotechnology and energy applications.

Challenge:

Food packaging is very important for the distribution of safe and sterile food; however, current packaging materials are not sustainable. Can we discover new materials that will improve the sustainability of packaging?

Research Strategy

Use common monomers from biomass to synthesize new polyesters
Test the polyesters for permeability and biodegradability using model high throughput assays
Develop models that predict permeability as a function of chemical structure for these monomers
Use this new information to evaluate potential new candidate polymers for packaging

Project description

Our current global system of industrial agriculture and food distribution uses farms and other processing and production locations that are typically far from where the food is consumed. This, as well as the need to maintain food freshness in storage, have led to the development of the near ubiquitous use of plastic packaging. While this packaging has helped to greatly expand the availability of nutritious food, at the same time it is creating a major sustainability crisis. Bradley Olsen, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, will lead an effort to develop a novel material that is both fully compostable and carries all of the food safety and preservation properties of plastics themselves. The strategy? Develop new varieties of sustainable polymers that can be produced from biomass and also degraded at the end of use, thus creating a closed carbon cycle.

Outcomes

Synthesized library of 300 terpolymers (polymers synthesized from three different monomers) for expansion of biodegradation library and understanding of biodegradation structure
Developed synthesis strategies for alternatives to unsustainable polymers
Conducted biodegradation testing of half of the polymer terpolymer library structure
Published finding in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences