The project addresses one of the world’s most pressing challenges in sustainability: eliminating plastic waste.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Professor & Regents’ Entrepreneur Rampi Ramprasad a $2 million grant to advance research at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and polymer science. He and a multidisciplinary team of Georgia Tech researchers will design next-generation polymer-based packaging materials that can easily be recycled or biodegraded at the end of their use. The project addresses one of the most pressing challenges in global sustainability: plastic waste.

The award will support the development of materials that outperform today’s options in both recyclability and biodegradability. The project, Informatics-Driven Design of Recyclable Polymers for Packaging, will explore the creation of high-performance polymers specifically designed for circular packaging applications.

Ramprasad work in MSE has advanced the search for new materials through contributions that have helped shape the field of polymer informatics. His research group uses virtual, computational, and AI-based methods to help accelerate materials discovery, design, and development for a variety of applications.

“Traditional materials development is often guided by intuition, trial and error, and lengthy experimentation” said Ramprasad. “Our approach of virtual screening and generative design allows us to explore vast chemical spaces quickly and efficiently, helping us identify sustainable solutions much faster.”

The research will emphasize two complementary recycling pathways: chemical recycling through ring-opening polymerization (ROP) and biodegradation using polyesters such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). 

As part of the multi-year NSF project,  Ramprasad will design novel polymers, which will be synthesized in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry laboratories of Will Gutekunst and Vinayak Agarwal. Performance testing will be carried out in Ryan Lively’s lab in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

The experimental results will feed back into AI models, creating a cycle of improvement that continually enhances their accuracy and applicability.
“Our research focuses on designing polymers that are recyclable or biodegradable from the start,” Ramprasad said. “We want to answer a fundamental question: how can we efficiently search the vast space of chemistries and processing conditions to find what is truly promising. And because packaging materials are everywhere — from food containers to shipping boxes to electronics—the potential impact of this work is enormous.”

By developing AI-guided, recyclable, and biodegradable polymers, the Georgia Tech team hopes not only to reduce global plastic waste, but also to bridge the gap between fundamental research and real-world application.

“It’s a great topic, a strong proposal, and above all, a fantastic team,” Ramprasad said. “It’s deeply gratifying that our work is being recognized as important for the future of sustainable materials.”