Geoffrey W. Coates and Marc A. Hillmyer

Modern society depends on polymer materials, yet most conventional plastics are made from fossil resources, and many persist long after use. Sustainable alternatives must address the origin of the raw materials, the efficiency of synthesis, the performance of the finished product and its degradation, reprocessing, or recycling after use. Geoffrey W. Coates and Marc A. Hillmyer have made pioneering and complementary contributions across this entire sequence. Through molecular design, catalysis, polymer architecture, and materials engineering, they have created new pathways from renewable and recovered carbon resources to high-performance polymeric materials designed for degradation, reprocessing or recycling.

Hillmyer has established fundamental principles for transforming renewable polymers into practical materials. His work on polylactide, or PLA, and related aliphatic polyesters has shown how molecular architecture, stereochemistry, and nanoscale organisation can overcome the brittleness and limited property range often associated with bioderived polymers. By combining rigid PLA segments with soft polyester blocks derived from renewable lactones, he created tough block polymer plastics, highly extensible thermoplastic elastomers, and pressure-sensitive adhesives with properties comparable to petroleum-derived, non-degradable materials. His research on sugar-derived monomers, rapidly degradable polyesters, and reprocessable PLA-based polymer networks has further demonstrated how renewable origin, high performance, repairability, and reprocessing can be incorporated into the same material. These advances have provided general design principles, compatibility with established meltprocessing methods, and industrially relevant routes for sustainable polymers. Coates has transformed polymer synthesis through catalysts that provide precise control over polymer composition, stereochemistry, and properties. He developed chemical routes to biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHAs, in which epoxides are converted into beta-lactones and subsequently polymer-ised into materials with tunable thermal, mechanical and degradation properties. These epoxides can be derived from renewable alkenes, while the carbon monoxide used in their production can be obtained by reducing carbon dioxide. Coates also pioneered highly active catalysts for the alternating copolymerisation of carbon dioxide and epoxides, establishing the scientific foundations for CO₂-containing polycarbonates and polyols that have reached industrial manufacture. His work on terpene-derived polymers, sequence-controlled biomedical polyesters and polymer recycling has extended these principles across a broad range of sustainable materials and demonstrated a direct path from catalyst design to scalable production.

Their collaboration has brought these approaches together. In jointly authored research, Coates and Hillmyer combined controlled polymer synthesis, materials engineering and environmental analysis to create polyester elastomers with strong mechanical performance and demonstrable enzymatic hydrolysability. They also developed robust polyester networks that can be reprocessed through dynamic bond exchange, recovered as prepolymers, or degraded hydrolytically. Their partnership has been strengthened through the National Science Foundation Center for Sustainable Polymers, founded and directed by Hillmyer, with Coates leading its Cornell research programme. The Center has united academic and industrial researchers around renewable feedstocks, catalytic polymerisations, material performance, biodegradation, and chemical recycling. Through their discoveries, collaboration and scientific leadership, Coates and Hillmyer have established an integrated pathway from molecular invention to industrially relevant materials and responsible end-of-life management, helping to lay the foundations for a polymer economy less dependent on fossil resources and with more environmentally compatible end-of-life options.

Geoffrey W. Coates: Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University

Marc A. Hillmyer: University of Minnesota, Department of Chemistry