Research

Plastics are useful and ubiquitous in our society. However, they also raise environmental problems due to their persistence in nature. Thus, sustainable approaches to the valorization of plastic waste remain of utmost importance. In the Stache lab, we are developing mild photooxidative degradation methods to upcycle post-consumer plastic waste into commercially important chemical feedstocks. In this method, an inexpensive oxidant (molecular O2), visible light, and nontoxic iron based photocatalysts are used.

The photothermal effect, in short, is a photon-promoted reactivity pathway unique to certain nanomaterials wherein, upon irradiation and excitation, the energy acquired is given off in a non-radiative pathway which generates extreme heat gradients. A staple in the biomedical and inorganic materials fields, the photothermal effect has seen little use within the field of organic synthesis. The Stache Lab envisions that this photon promoted pathway could be leveraged for a wide array of diverse and difficult organic transformations – combining…