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Dr. Krzysztof Matyjaszewski
STAR Grantee Receives National and Local Awards from the American Chemical Society
Matyjaszewski project member, Nick Tsarevsky, performs polymer analysis using GPC machine
(August, 2002) Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grantee, has received two prestigious awards from the American Chemical Society (ACS) for his extensive and creative accomplishments in polymer science. The first award, the ACS 2002 Award in Polymer Science, is sponsored by ExxonMobil Chemical Company. Since 1962, this award has been given annually to recognize chemists who have made outstanding contributions to polymer chemistry. Dr. Matyjaszewski also joins a group of Pittsburgh chemists as a recipient of the 2001 Pittsburgh Award for leadership in chemical affairs in the local and larger professional community. The Pittsburgh Award, sponsored by the ACS Pittsburgh Section, was presented on October 10, and then was honored at the 223rd ACS National Meeting in Orlando, Florida.
Dr. Matyjaszewski has been a STAR grantee since 1998. In his first grant, he worked on eliminating volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from chemical processes using atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The ATRP process is being commercialized in the U.S., Japan, and Germany. His newest grant will investigate methods to reuse and recycle expensive metal catalysts used to make polymers. Instead of using harmful VOCs, this method will use water to reduce the heavy metals in products such as automotive coatings, glues, etc.
Dr. Matyjaszewski's research at Carnegie Mellon focuses on three major areas: the synthesis of novel inorganic and/or organometallic polymers, "living" carbocationic polymerization, and controlled polymers via radical processes. He has developed new methods for preparing well-defined polymers in systems that were previously thought to be impossible to control. Through expertise in kinetics and mechanisms of controlled/living polymerization, he has developed syntheses of many polymers and copolymers with novel topologies, compositions and functionality. These novel catalytic systems have attracted industrial interest.
Professor Krzysztof (Kris) Matyjaszewski received his Ph.D. from the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1976 and joined the Department of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon in 1985. He has received other awards from the Polish Academy of Sciences (1975), Polish Chemical Society (1980), Presidential Young Investigator Award (1989), ACS Creative Polymer Chemistry Award (1995), Elf Chair from French Academy of Sciences (1998), and the Humboldt Award for US Senior Scientists (1999). He was inducted as a Fellow of the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials, Science and Engineering in 2001. His most recent award (March 2002) is an honorary degree from the University of Ghent, Belgium. He holds more than 20 US and international patents.
Research links of interest are:
- Towards Elimination of Transition Metals and VOCs from the Environmentally Benign Materials Made by Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP)
- Final Report: Elimination of VOC's in the Synthesis and Application of Polymeric Materials Using Atom
Additional information on the STAR program can be found at the National Center for Environmental Research. For more information, contact Estella Waldman at Waldman.Estella@epa.gov.