The American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) Natural Polymers Consortium (NPC), which launched in 2024, has published its first paper which can be found in ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. It identifies challenges and opportunities for advancing the use of natural polymers as commercially viable alternatives to products like single-use plastics and nonbiodegradable detergents, which are made with synthetic polymers. These are products that the public has grown used to in the past 50 years and, in recent years, increasingly concerned about in terms of environmental and health impacts.
“If we had asked people to research natural polymers 100 years ago, that probably wasn’t the best time because at that time people did not even understand the structure of what’s called polymers,” says Jun Wang, director of global packaging innovation at Colgate-Palmolive and cochair of the NPC. After almost a century of exploration of synthetic polymers, Wang says scientists have gained a lot of knowledge to understand the polymer chain, the molecular structure, and the relationship between that structure and performance.
Foundations: In science and across many industries
One of the important things to come out of this paper is defining natural polymers. Natural polymers are already defined in various contexts such as by the European Chemicals Agency, however the intent behind the three-pronged definition in this paper is for scientific advancement—offering specifics, but not so specific that it precludes the science necessary to grow the field.
“A natural polymer is based on biogenic carbon—so, carbon that’s from biology, ultimately. A natural polymer has a backbone structure which exists in nature, and a natural polymer decomposes in a relevant environment via natural processes,” explains Matthew Wagner, director of research and development at Procter & Gamble and cochair of the NPC. “That definition or framework would include all polymers that you would find in nature. It would also include derivatives of polymers that you would find in nature, provided that they are degradable in the right context and the right framework.”
Challenges in innovation for each of their respective sectors are what brought industry members together to form the consortium and what helped guide the focus of this first paper.
“The technical challenges for introducing new materials and industrial applications are substantial,” Wagner says. One way to overcome those challenges, he says, is “making sure you have robust understanding of the chemistry, physics, the engineering, the biology where it’s relevant, and the foundational science that’s necessary to develop and apply those materials.” Hearing different perspectives from the various types of NPC member companies makes it clear what a significant problem innovation challenges are but also “how many commonalities there are in the underlying science that justify the collection of companies coming together into a consortium like this,” Wagner says.
“I think the take-home message is innovation is a team sport, and it’s going to require a concerted effort across multiple stakeholders to be able to advance the science to the point where we can broaden the use of natural polymers beyond the success that they’ve already shown.”
Plastic replacements and alternatives aren’t the consortium’s only concerns. “Alternatives to plastic is an important topic for us, but more generally what we see is natural polymers offer an opportunity” to complement synthetic polymers for a variety of end-use applications, Wagner says. “That would include packaging applications where you might see plastics.” Other examples include building and construction, automotive, or even durable goods. Wagner also says that would include applications of polymers used in formulated products, giving examples of adhesives, paints and coatings, and other consumer products. “All those applications are within scope for the Natural Polymer Consortium as we contemplate where we see natural polymers having an impact on society and on the economy,” Wagner says.
Before synthetic polymers, people used natural polymers. Synthetic polymers were discovered, optimized, and commercialized through a lot of investment—both money and research. “That investment in research was because these great new materials . . . offered better cost, opportunities to control performance, opportunities to develop and deliver them at scale—all of the things that have led to them becoming so prevalent in modern society,” Wagner says. Investment in natural polymers became less important except in sectors like the food industry, which has a number of successful commercializations—think edible coatings on apples and the texture of plant-based meats.
The consortium recognizes the knowledge accumulated and infrastructure created by synthetic polymer research as useful and asks the question, “Why can’t we and shouldn’t we take that infrastructure and all that knowledge and then look at how we might reapply that to the development and advancement of natural polymers?” Wagner says.
Investment: In partnerships, ideas, and solutions
Wang says it’s another challenge to work alone—especially for industry—to create the sound fundamental science needed for the successful innovation of natural polymers. This is why consortium members saw a partnership through the ACS GCI as a good fit.
One of GCI’s mandates is to increase the adoption of green chemistry in various industry sectors, says Edmond Lam, assistant director of the ACS GCI and Office of Sustainable Development. “One of the value adds to [this mandate] in regard to [GCI’s] industry programs is being able to collaborate with academia.” That partnership forms the basis for tackling the innovation challenges, “doing the chemistry, doing the engineering that’s required to solve specific needs, and then taking that knowledge and . . . training students—undergraduate, graduate, postdocs—that’s an integral part of really ensuring that there’s also a potential pipeline for future employees,” Lam says. If companies can share their knowledge early on with academia, he adds, “then that future talent will be attuned to what is needed. Sustainability and green chemistry will be part of their processes already.”
The GCI has also been able to assist in the monetary investment part of the puzzle. Pulling from the success of the Pharmaceutical Roundtable, the ACS GCI Natural Polymers Consortium Research Grant was launched shortly after the NPC was created. The NPC saw that the funded research from the Pharmaceutical Roundtable was being implemented in industry, in student training, and in collaborations, and realized that’s what the NPC needed too. These grants often lead to industry members continuing collaboration with academics on other needs after the grants end, but in the case of the NPC, “the grants program certainly serves to announce to the world that this group is here—we have a tangible activity where industry has identified specific challenges.”
The paper identifies three areas that industry has an interest in: the sourcing, processing, and performance of natural polymers.
The grant program allows “the industry members of the NPC to say, ‘Hey, these are three important areas that we’re looking at on the value chain,’” Lam says. “They may not necessarily be the most important 6 or 9 months, or 2 years later, but there needs to be a starting point.” Lam continues the grants will also allow the NPC to see what academics have been thinking about in terms of where they feel natural polymers innovation is and it will give a glimpse into how close or how far the innovation gap is from working with academia to deployment.
Other notable parameters of the grant are that it’s global, so the NPC can get an idea of what the world is thinking for innovation, and it’s geared toward long-term effects of scaling and commercialization. “That’s kind of a key thing being asked by the NPC to applicants, is to be really forward thinking and not just be thinking about the next publication,” Lam says, encouraging potential proposals to consider not just ideas, but scale and technology readiness.
The success of advancing natural polymers will require not only industry and academia but the broader scientific community, funding agencies, nongovernmental organizations, policymakers, and others. “I think the take-home message is innovation is a team sport, and it’s going to require a concerted effort across multiple stakeholders to be able to advance the science to the point where we can broaden the use of natural polymers beyond the success that they’ve already shown,” Wagner says.
To that point, the consortium is open to members from across that spectrum. The aim is “to provide a lot of the science-based facts and the data to support any potential solutions we propose in the future,” Wang says, noting the NPC is focused on solutions. “We know the plastic pollution is there, it’s a fact, but what’s the best solution?” The consortium seeks as many perspectives as possible, he adds. “We do not need to finger point anymore. We just want to find the solution which is coming from the collective intelligence.” It’s through this collaboration, discussions and brainstorming, and research and funding that solutions with the least number of unintended consequences in the future can hopefully be found.
