Class Meeting Times Tu,Th 8:00-9:50am 01/16/2025-05/01/2025
The schedule below is tentative as adjustments will be made to best deliver the material
Calendar
Please see the course schedule below. Specifics and links will be updated as the course progresses within Moodle.
Weekly schedule (Tentative)
Week 1 - Polymers and Plastics Introductions
Activity: Exercise on polymer architecture - build your own with paperclips
Week 2 - Sustainable Development of Polymers/Plastics
Continue Activity 1: Plastic Properties
Week 3 - Monomers and polymer composition
Activity: Case Study - Chemical Spill in Ohio, MCHM spill
Week 4 - Chemical Structures, The Plastic Eaters
Activity: Case Study - Bacteria designed to eat plastic
Week 5 - Plastic Recycling and Waste Management
Activity: Case Study - Plastic Wars (chemical, mechanical and biological recycling)
Week 6 - Plastics and Energy Cycles
Activity: Completing Cycles - energy vs matter, mixed plastics, chemical recycling
Week 7 - Polymer Additives
Activity: Case study of Rubber pollution in a River
Activity: Research polymer additives, what are they and what do they do?
Week 8 - Bioplastics
Activity: Making Bioplastics (now Week 10)
Week 9 - Textiles/Microfibers
Activity: Explore textiles and their behavior
Week 10 - Microplastics and Nanoplastics on land, in water, and in air
Activity: Case Study - Water Bottles, plastics on the beach
Week 11 - Microplastics and Nanoplastics - health effects
Activity: Critical analysis of the reports on health effects
Week 12 - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Activity: Characterizing Polymers in Marine Environments
Week 13 - Water Pollution - Rivers, Lakes, Streams
Activity: Latest news and understanding of water transport of plastics and microplastics
Week 14 - Plasticulture - plastic use in agriculture
Activity: Case Study of Plastic water pipe liners and environmental hazards
Activity: Analysis of plastic mulch and pastic sheets in farming
Week 15 - Wrap up/Current State
May 10 - Final Project due
Laboratory Schedule (from 2023 - in 2024/2025 we are wrapping these into lecture/lab)
1/12/2023 Orientation/Safety/exercise on polymer architecture -
1/19/2023 Polymer Crosslinking and physics
1/26/2023 Case Study - Plastic precucursors and environmental leaks
2/02/2023 Polymer size, crystallinity, cheese polymers - viscoelasticity
2/09/2023 Textiles Lab
2/16/2023 Case Study - Chemical Spill in Ohio
2/23/2023 Case Study - Plastic Wars (chemical, mechanical and biological recycling)
3/02/2023 Bioplastics - Synthesis and Calorimetry
3/16/2023 Characterizing Polymers in Marine Environments
3/23/2023 Case Study - Plastic water pipe liners and environmental hazards
3/30/2023 Sand/soil collection
4/06/2023 Treatment of soil and sand
4/13/2023 Separation and capture microplastics
4/20/2023 Detection of micro and nanoplastics