Episode 65: Dr. Frank Leibfarth on Upcycling Plastic Waste and Tackling Forever Chemicals

Introduction to Episode

0:00Hi! You're listening to Let's Talk Chemistry, a podcast by ChemTalk. Today's episode is all about upcycling plastic waste and tackling forever chemicals with Dr. Frank Leibvarth. Dr. Leibvarth's exceptional work in these areas earned him the Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists, where he was named the 2025 Laureate in Chemical Sciences earlier this October. This is the largest unrestricted prize ever created for early career scientists,

0:32and it's an exceptional achievement and testament to his contributions in his fields of research and beyond. As you'll notice, we're trying a new format today. You'll hear a brief primer first about what plastics and forever chemicals actually are, and then we'll dive right into the interview. Let us know what you think. We'd love to hear your feedback. We hope you enjoy!

Primer on Plastics

0:56Welcome back to another episode of Let's Talk Chemistry. My name is Nina Ding. And I am Diagirapalli. This is your primer on our interview with Dr. Frank Leibvarth, a chemist tackling some of the toughest problems in sustainability. This is fascinating stuff, but it helps to have a little bit of background first. So Nina, I was wondering what exactly is a polymer? That's a good question. A polymer is kind of like a large molecule consisting of a long chain of repeating building blocks called monomers. And kind of like beads on a string

1:31to make a bracelet, each bead is a monomer, so when you link thousands of them together, you get a polymer. Is that what plastics are made out of? Totally. Two of the most common plastics are polyethylene and polypropylene. Polyethylene is found in grocery bags, milk jugs, and cling wrap, and polypropylene is found in bottle caps and reusable shopping bags. Wow. So basically the things we use every day. Yeah, pretty much. They're everywhere because they're so lightweight, strong, and cheap to make. But those same properties that make them

2:04really difficult to recycle. The main reason is because the carbon-hydrogen bonds in these polymers are really strong and stable. So they don't easily react with other chemicals, making it hard to break

PFAS Explanation

2:17down or modify them. So even though we can melt plastics down, we can't chemically recycle them? Most of what we call recycling just reshapes the plastic, which usually lowers its quality. Dr. Leifert's lab is taking a different approach, though. They want to turn plastic into something of higher value, and the process is called upcycling. You'll hear more about how he directly targets this issue later in the podcast. That's awesome. I also heard he works with PFAS. Can you explain what they

2:48are? Sure. PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They are a large family of man-made chemicals used in things like nonstick cookware and waterproof clothing. Are there any downsides to PFAS? Yes. They are extremely strong carbon-fluorine bonds, so this stops them from breaking down naturally. And they can persist in the environment for decades, and people call them forever chemicals. Wow, that's kind of scary. Does that mean that they can eventually make their way into us if they're

3:23out in the environment long enough? Yeah, unfortunately, this is true. So PFAS can enter our bodies through water, food, or even household dust. And we can be exposed to these chemicals through ingestion, inhalation, and touch. So PFAS can then accumulate in our bodies over time, and this exposure has been linked to a range of health risks, such as higher cholesterol, impacts on the immune system, and disruptions to hormones and thyroid function. That's really alarming. It's scary to think that these chemicals are in things we interact with every day,

3:58and knowing that they can negatively affect our health really hits home how serious this is.

Importance of PFAS Research

4:04It makes you wonder, what can actually be done about this? Well, as we will discuss later in our interview with Dr. Leibvarth, his team is actually designing new polymer materials that can selectively capture PFAS from contaminated water. So now that we've got a sense of what polymers are, why they're tough to recycle, and what makes PFAS so persistent, let's hear from Dr. Leibvarth himself.

4:28Hi, and welcome to another episode of Let's Talk Chemistry. Today we're joined by a very special guest, Dr. Frank Leibvarth. Dr. Leibvarth is the Royce Murray Distinguished Term Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He was recently named a Blavatnik National Awards Laureate for Young Scientist early this October, becoming the first-ever laureate from UNC Chapel Hill.

5:00Dr. Leibvarth is a polymer chemist and has made breakthroughs in upcycling plastic waste and removing forever chemicals from water. Dr. Leibvarth, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, great to be here, Nina. Thanks for having me. All right, so before we start talking about your research, can you just describe your background

Dr Leibvarth's Background

5:18growing up and how you first became interested in chemistry?

5:22Sure, yeah. I grew up in a small kind of agricultural town in South Dakota of about 12,000 people. And, you know, it was kind of a great, quiet place to grow up, surrounded by lots of cornfields. And all through my educational journey, you know, neither of my parents have a four-year degree. So I feel like their goal for me that I remember was always to go to college, right, to go to college. And I took, you know, all the normal classes in high school, and I actually really did not like my

5:54sophomore in high school chemistry class. So I chose not to take AP chemistry because I didn't think I was interested in it. And then I got to college. And, you know, usually at that point in your life, look to your parents for advice, right? So I kind of looked back to them and said, okay, what do I do now? And I feel like they were like, well, we don't know. This is, like, where our experience ends, right? So in some ways, I was really freeing because I felt like I got to really take ownership of what I wanted to do and got to decide for myself. And I was always very interested in, like, kind of the molecular level details

6:29of what was going on. And I ended up taking, I ended up, I think, initially declaring a biology major. And I like molecular biology, but I got into a lot of other biology. And I remember asking the professors, like, hey, you have this cartoon of a protein and this cartoon of a ligand, and they come together. But what actually, like, they're not cartoons in our body, right? What actually happens? And they would kind of always be like, well, don't worry about that right now. That's, you know, that's not what you're learning. And then I took organic chemistry, and I kind of answered all those questions that I feel like I had had but couldn't articulate for a long

6:59time. And so it was that organic chemistry that really got me excited about chemistry again. And then I also was, I feel like, rather presumptuous at that age. And, you know, I didn't have, like, a lot of resources. And I also ended up playing football in college. I was a kicker on the football team. So I went to my organic chemistry professor, and I was like, well, I want to travel for the summer because I can't do study abroad. And I need to be paid for it because I don't have much money. Can you help me find something? And luckily, there was these NSF RU programs, right? And he pointed me towards those,

7:33and I applied to 10 of them, and got rejected by nine of them. But I got into by far the best one I applied to, which was Columbia University. And that's kind of set, I feel like that experience in Colin Knuckles' lab at Columbia really set me up for the rest of my career. I kind of learned what graduate school was, I learned that you got paid to go to graduate school and didn't have to go into debt. I learned what it was like to be in a high-level research environment. And it was that summer I decided that was what I wanted to do for my career. Yeah, that's really interesting. And it's,

8:04I think it's great that there's so many opportunities in college if you really look for it and apply for those things. And as you said, even though you only got into one, that one was the thing that eventually, like, kick-started your career. Yeah. And I also wanted to ask about your time as a kicker on the University of South Dakota's football team. How was that experience like? And did you ever, like, imagine that you would end up becoming a scientist? I, yeah, I never imagined I would become

8:40a scientist. Kind of until I was a scientist. Like, until, like, my senior year of college, right, that became real. No, sports were something that I was always, I always loved growing up. I played actually a lot of soccer. And it was, I think, my freshman year in high school in my PE class, we had, like, a football unit, right, where we practiced passing and we practiced kicking. And I kicked the ball and the PE teacher was also the head football coach. And I remember him saying, go to, go to the end of the line and do that again. And then I did it again. He was like,

9:12how would you like to play football? Um, so I kind of started in, in high school, actually Adam Vinatieri, who was kind of the famous kicker, uh, for the, um, for the New England Patriots who won them a lot of Super Bowls. He was my first coach because he was also from South Dakota. Um, and so I did that in high school. I was, I was quite adept at it. And then, you know, uh, college football's a very challenging, right, atmosphere. So I, I went, um, to college and was on the football team, but didn't play for the first year because, or first two years, because somebody was in line,

9:43uh, who was also very good. Uh, but the experience of playing football was amazing. It's, it's a, it's a really interesting thing in life because it's one of these things. I, I had no illusions I was ever going to play football after college, right? So you get to do this really, you, you get to have this really unique, intense experience with, you know, 85 other people, uh, who are all kind of, uh, in this intense experience with you, but you also know it won't last forever and it's going to end. Right. So it was kind of, I don't know, one of the first times in my life I had that, um,

10:15experience. So it was, it was awesome. It was, it's very unique. I've never done anything like it since. It feels almost like another life I lived that has no relationship to this current life. Uh, but it taught me a lot of great lessons. It taught me how to lose. Um, it taught me how to kind of not fear failure. Uh, it taught me how to work really, really hard for something that I wanted. Um, and a lot of those lessons, you know, uh, kind of broader life lessons continue to apply. Wow. That's really amazing. And I know that it's so important to have like other hobbies and other,

10:49like things that you're passionate about outside of just your career. And that sounds like such an amazing thing that you did. And I wanted to talk about, since you're a polymer chemist, how did you

Research on Polymers

11:01start becoming interested in, start researching polymers? Yeah. So, um, in that REU that I told you about at, uh, with Colin Knuckles at Columbia, I did research on, uh, you know, synthetic chemistry, uh, which I was really interested in. My dad, when I grew up, uh, as a side job, kind of as a second job, um, he was a truck, he drove trucks in his primary job, but he would like help redo people's basements or, you know, he, he, he was pretty on a pretty adept carpenter. So I would always help him do that. Um, but so I really loved

11:32working with my hands, right. That was something I liked and synthetic chemistry. That's kind of why I was drawn to that form of chemistry. Once I got in the lab, cause it's a lot of like mixing things, purifying things, working with your hands. Right. So I liked, I really liked that about synthetic chemistry. Um, but then the next year I did an REU at IBM, um, in San Jose and that I started working on polymers and I really loved the idea there that I could do synthetic chemistry and make things, but also the end product I could like hold in my hand. Right. And actually see, um, and you

12:06know, stretch and pull and feel, feel the properties of it. Um, so that it was really kind of those two REU experiences. So I have, I'm very in debt to the NSF. They've, they've been very, uh, generous to me throughout my career. Um, and really like, you know, kind of set me on this path. Uh, but that that's what got me interested in polymers is I liked the combination of synthetic chemistry and actually making things, um, but then making things that I could hold in my hand and characterize more. And that's out of, to this day, what a lot of my lab does, right. We make new materials and

12:39then, you know, we, we try to characterize them really thoroughly. Yeah. I'm really glad that you found your interest in polymers at like such a young, relatively young age. And I also saw that while you were working as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, you were working with machines that kind of automated the synthesis of complex molecules, which you kind of described as the next computing revolution. Could you tell us more about the work involved in that and how it has impacted your

13:12research today? Yeah, sure. So I, I worked with Tim Jameson at, uh, MIT and he collaborated a lot with Klaus Jensen, who was a chemical engineer. And my work is always kind of sat at this interface of chemistry and engineering. You know, polymers are used in lots of engineering applications. Um, so I was really drawn to that. I wanted definitely in my postdoc to get different experience than I had in my graduate work. Um, and I wanted to be in a really synthetic lab. So the interesting thing about Tim's group at the time is it was very interdisciplinary. Um, it, he did work in total synthesis. He did work

13:47in nickel catalysis. And then he did this work at the interface of engineering and flow chemistry and trying to automate reactions. So it was a place where I knew I could go in and use some of my, you know, kind of engineering, uh, expertise, but also learn a lot of the synthetic chemistry that I, that I didn't get, uh, as much depth in, in graduate school. Um, so the, the flow chemistry, uh, and I also saw that flow chemistry could have applications to polymers that were maybe underdeveloped. Uh, it had been used a lot in, in kind of small molecule synthesis.

14:19And, uh, I wanted to learn it and learn it there and then take it to my independent career. And that's kind of what I've done. So what it allowed me to do then and, uh, in my independent career is, you know, essentially, uh, look at polymers, right? There's lots of continuous variables and polymers that you can change. Let's say the composition of material, the length, right? Uh, of a polymer chain, et cetera. And because those are all continuous variables, you can often change those in an automated fashion. If you had access to the tools,

14:50one of the most famous tools to make, uh, polymers in an automated fashion is like, uh, automated peptide or DNA or nucleic acid synthesis, right? And these, uh, you know, there's been Nobel prizes won for these. These, uh, are used all over the world all the time. So I thought, could we do a similar thing for synthetic polymers? Uh, and we've been able to do that. And then as in the last kind of 15 years, as you know, data science and machine learning has become, um, more and more powerful, uh, we've started interfacing those now in my independent career, interfacing the ability to make polymers in an automated fashion and systematically

15:25change continuous variables, uh, and then interface that with like a lot of the really powerful data science techniques. Uh, and that gives us a really nice toolbox to solve kind of very complex problems where, you know, there's lots of different variables you have to optimize at once. And many of them are interdependent, right? And the, and when you get into these really challenging problem spaces, right, the human brain isn't great at pattern recognition, uh, in, in those areas, but that's what, um, uh, machine learning is great at. Uh, so we've been able to kind of couple now

15:55that automated synthesis, uh, with data science. Wow. Yeah. I love how you're really open to adapting like new technologies into your research. And I can tell that definitely has like made a big impact on your research as well. And I wanted to talk about two major areas of your research that

Upcycling Plastic Research

16:14were recognized for the Blavatnik award, which were upcycling plastic and PFAS removal. So first on upcycling plastic, can you tell us more about this research and what it entails and kind of what are the implications for this on plastic waste? Sure. Um, I'll tell you a quick story about kind of how I started in this area, because I think it's, it's maybe instructive for a broader audience, right? Um, you know, I'm, I'm a chemist in general and mostly interested in fundamental research, although some of my research has gotten more and more applied. Um, and I worked a lot in my

16:48graduate work on what is called post-polymerization modification of polymers. So polymers are, are long chains of repeating groups, right? The polymers I work on mostly, uh, we know colloquially as plastics, right? So polymers are plastics. And I worked in a lot in the area of what's called post-polymerization modification. So actually, so when you already, you've already made a polymer or plastic, and you want to do a reaction on it to change its properties. And when I started graduate school, it was not long after Barry Sharpless and, uh, Carolyn Bertozzi and others

17:23have popularized the use of click chemistry. Um, so I worked a lot in, in kind of developing new, really efficient click type reactions on polymers in my, in my graduate work. And then I was thinking, I think this is a great thing about starting your own lab is I was thinking broadly, okay, I want to solve like the next big challenge, right? In my field. And where click chemistry was the challenge that I kind of adopted when I went into graduate school. Uh, now I get to make this decision myself on what challenge did I want to, uh, to, to tackle. And I thought broadly about in

17:54post-polymerization modification, what is the challenge left, right? Through this, uh, through the concept of click chemistry, we were able to make insanely complex materials that could, that could perform all these really cool functions, but they were all really complex and all really expensive, right? And kind of difficult to make. So I started thinking, what if we go back to a little simpler, right? Concept. And we already make an insane amount of plastics, right? Could we just take those plastics we already make and do reactions on them? And of course you probably couldn't do click

18:28reactions because they don't have the functional groups on them to do such, such reactions. So then, the challenge became, can you develop reactions you can do on something like polyethylene or polystyrene? And these polymers simply have carbon and hydrogen atoms, right? There's no other functionality, uh, within those polymers. And so that's what I identified. I said, that's what I wanted to do in my independent careers. I think this is the next challenge to solve in this research area. And that's what I want to do. So it actually started from a very kind of fundamental chemistry place, right? Like solving a synthetic problem. Um, but you know, um, in parallel, uh, the challenge

19:06of sustainability and plastics has been around for a long time, but was certainly gaining, um, a lot of attention. Um, and so actually we published the, our first paper in this area on modification of polyethylene and, you know, didn't mention upcycling at all. Right. Cause we were just kind of solving this fundamental chemistry problem. And then, um, actually this, uh, really influential report from the department of energy came out. Um, and it actually cited our paper and said, we think,

19:38you know, essentially this report, uh, which was, you know, written by a number of experts in the field said, right. Upcycling plastics and recycling plastics, uh, is a really huge problem. It outlined the problem. And it cited our paper as, as one of the, um, technologies moving forward that could make an impact. Right. And I, I'd already been kind of thinking in this way as I developed this technology. And so broadly what upcycling plastic is, is, um, this idea that you can take a material after its initial use, um, and do a chemical reaction or a processing step on it that makes it

20:15more valuable than it was before. Right. So if, if you didn't recycle a material, arguably you should, um, and some materials can be recycled, but a lot of materials are downcycled. So, you know, if you, uh, use a plastic water bottle, which is made of PET, when you recycle it, often it will be turned into something like carpet, right. Which is lower value than that initial water bottle. So we would really call that downcycling. Um, downcycling is, is tough because economically, right. It, it, it doesn't really, uh, work out. Uh, but if we could generate technology to upcycle, then the

20:49material will be more valuable than it was before. It would create this economic incentive for recycling and it would create, right. More reasons to, to use plastics more than once. Um, so that's the, the concept, uh, of upcycling that, uh, we started pursuing and started, you know, really tuning some of the fundamental chemistry we were developing to solve broader challenges in this area. That's really great. And I love how you kind of talked about your background into going into upcycling plastic. We actually did an, a previous interview with Dr. Morten Meldahl, who won the Nobel

21:25Prize for clear chemistry. And it's really great to see how, I think this is a really great testament of what research is and we're standing on each other's shoulders to like, um, to, um, to go forward on research and also find different ways to apply research into real problems that we have as a society. And I wanted to ask you about, is there a really big, is there a barrier to making chemically, to make chemical upcycling feasible at an industrial scale? Or are you working towards

21:59that in any way right now? Yeah. So, um, you know, there's been, I would say there are upcycling technologies being implemented right now. Right. So, uh, you know, uh, there's an, uh, most industries are working, uh, in this area because they see it as, you know, uh, uh, uh, real potential way to, uh, generate, uh, a revenue stream. Right. And even in the case of, uh, capitalism, right. When

22:30your inputs, i.e. recycled plastic is free, right. That, that creates an incentive, right. You have this, you have this input that all you have to do is kind of get it to the right location. You know, it is really inexpensive. And if you can make a valuable product from it, right. The, the economics work out. So one example I think of right now is Eastman Chemical, which is a large chemical company in, in Tennessee, they're taking waste PET. So polyethylene tear phthalate from, from a water bottle. Uh, and they're doing a chemical recycling process to break it down into

23:00monomers and then re-polymerizing that into a higher value polyester than PET. One of their materials called Triton. Right. And so, you know, I could go through a number of different companies that are, that are all doing this, but I do want to stress that, right. That this isn't, you know, uh, uh, uh, science fiction, right. Upcycling is being done. Uh, I think the type of upcycling I do, um, which is really focused on the largest volume polymers in the world, polyethylene and polypropylene, you know, those two polymers made from two of the simplest molecules you can think

23:32of, right. Ethylene is two carbons and four hydrogens, right. Um, upcycling them in an economic fashion is still quite challenging. Um, for a few reasons. One, the carbon hydrogen bonds are really strong, right. That's a problem we've tried to tackle through reactivity and we've developed some, I think, really, uh, useful reactions in that case. Uh, the other challenge though, that kind of goes along with that is polyethylene is really cheap and it's cheap because at least

24:03for a long time and still to some extent, it was simply a waste product of petroleum refining. Right. So for a long time to make, you know, to refine crude oil, to make gasoline, one of the byproducts or two of the byproducts would be ethylene and propylene. Right. So initially a lot of these catalysts were developed to polymerize, uh, these simple monomers. Uh, and you know, that was kind of seen as a waste stream that then these companies could sell, right. For a few cents a pound. Now, since plastics certainly have become more ubiquitous, uh, they are actually, you know, a revenue generating stream and some petroleum

24:37is refined simply to make plastics, which is, which has been a turning point, but still these things sell for, you know, less than a dollar a kilogram. And, you know, I've been at conferences and, and, you know, a lot of these large petrochemical companies have done, um, studies and say, they'll say that people will pay more for sustainable plastics, uh, but for ethylene and propylene, they'll pay on average three cents more per pound until right. That the societal push kind of goes away. So then from a, from a fundamental chemistry

25:08standpoint, how do you develop an upcycling technology that takes a material that let's say is 70 cents a pound and doesn't increase its price by more than three cents. Uh, so that's really in terms of polyolefins, the, the bottleneck right now, right. Is, uh, you know, there's numerous solutions to this. Some of them could be policy solutions. Certainly some of them are technology solutions. Um, so we've talked to lots of different companies that produce polyolefins with our technology. We've had funded projects with some of them.

25:39Um, but we've always, this has kind of always been the point we've come to is, you know, any chemical process has some energy input, has some material input, and that material input has to be so simple and so inexpensive to actually make it into the market in the case of polyolefins that it's challenging. But for other polymers and other technologies, this, this does exist. Yeah, that sounds like a really, really interesting challenge. And I'm excited to see where your research takes you next in that field. So kind of moving on to your research in PFAS, how did

PFAS Removal Research

26:12you first become interested in this? And how did you just start, um, researching about how to remove PFAS from water? Yeah, so I actually first became interested, there was this wonderful article, um, in the New York Times Magazine that must have come out around 2015. Because I remember distinctly being in my apartment in Boston, um, and I got the New York Times Magazine, um, and it was one of these articles that catches you every once in a while where you start reading it, you

26:44can't put it down. Right? And it was a very long article, and I remember I had other things to do, and I was like, I need to do these other things, but I can't stop reading this. And it was really, uh, the story, it ended up, uh, that article became, uh, a movie called Dark Waters. The movie Dark Waters is based on that article. So I wasn't the only one that thought it was really good. Uh, but it really spelled out the history of PFAS, when it started being made, the class action lawsuit against DuPont, uh, that ended up, you know, kind of breaking open, um, the field and, and leading to a broader societal realization that these molecules are

27:20toxic and, and are everywhere and they bioaccumulate. So that was actually what first got me interested in this topic, was this wonderful article, and, and I think that just stresses the importance of journalism broadly. Right? Um, and then once I got into UNC, I started in 2016, and in 2017, a representative from the state legislate legislature came to our faculty meeting actually, and this never happened. This is very out of the ordinary and said, we've just realized in North Carolina, we have huge challenge with PFAS. We found out that there was this, uh, a Teflon producing clients

27:55right upstream of a third largest town in, in the States that had been releasing PFAS for years. Uh, and you know, the citizens in this town and a lot of other places in the States are very, very angry and the legislature really wants to do something about this, but we don't know what to do because this is a problem that's pretty new. And so we're turning to the scientists in our state for help. Like if you have any ideas on how to find this, how to characterize it, how to remove it from water, please let us know. So I kind of came up, actually it was my colleague

28:26Marcy Waters who, who just had this offhanded comment to me walking out of our faculty meeting. And she said, Hey Frank, if a hydrogel can soak up a lot of water, could a fluorogel soak up a lot of fluorine. And that kind of like kickstarted me thinking. And so I, I, uh, went, I figured out then, right. What chemical structure would actually make that happen. I actually read a lot about diapers because right. Diapers are a thing called super absorbent polymers that absorb a lot of something. Um, and then, um, I ended up getting funding for, to, for someone in my lab to work for

29:01two years on this problem. And, you know, we did a typical academic study. It was, it was one of those great studies where the first material we made worked really, really well. Um, and we made a library of materials and they all kind of removed a hundred percent of the PFAS. So we kept having to add other stuff to water, um, to out-compete the PFAS so we could see which material is even better. So that was an exciting day in lab. But then after two years, you know, we, we published a paper, um, we got a patent. It, the paper ended up being the, the cover issue of ACS Central Science

29:34and kind of, I thought it would be a normal research project at that point, right? I would probably apply for an NSF grant. I would have somebody work on it in the lab. And then the state Senator from Wilmington, that town I talked about, called up and said, what would it take to test this material in my treatment plan? And so that is a much larger question. question than I was kind of prepared to ask, right? Of the lab work we'd done. Um, but, uh, I'd got together with, uh, uh, environmental engineer here who works on, um, you know, technologies

30:10for water, uh, purification. And we identified, right? What it would take to do that. We negotiated kind of with a bipartisan group of legislators over about a year and a half. And then in the 2021, 2022 budget, we got a $10 million allocation, uh, to, and the, the, the three things we were required to do with that allocation was develop new materials for PFAS remediation, scale them up and pilot them in at least three municipal water treatment plants in the state. One surface water drinking water treatment plant, one groundwater drinking water treatment

30:43plant, and one wastewater, um, municipal water plant. And so we've done that since 2022. We, uh, have set up the NC pure program, uh, myself and Orlando Cornell, uh, that engineer I talked about co-directed it, co-directed, uh, we've hired 10 people. We built out a facility to do all this work. Um, and we've now actually at the end of this year, we'll kind of be the end of that funding cycle. Uh, and we've succeeded in our goal and actually surpassed it. So we've scaled the material

31:15we've made now, I think at NC pure in total, kind of over 40 kilograms of, of different technologies for water treatment. We've piloted it and we've completed pilots in four municipal water treatment plants. And we actually have, um, another three currently operating and we're going to start a few more. Uh, and we've, you know, gotten a great group of people together who've kind of been able to focus on this problem solely for the last few years. And through that, uh, we've also then, uh, myself and my, uh, co-director have co-founded the company called Sorbenta and we've licensed some

31:50of this technology from UNC and we're trying to commercialize it. Um, so it's been a really crazy ride that I didn't expect to take, right? For an academic scientist. Um, but I, I think the things that have been most fun about it, one is that it's, you know, I'm really kind of doing science, uh, that's certainly more applied than I expected to do, but it's really serving like my local community and my state. Uh, and that's had a big impact. You know, I can, I guess I can see the

32:25impact of my science more directly, right? Cause I've talked to people in my town, right? You know, they know I work on these things. I've gone to Wilmington, which is really at the center of this spoken at town hall meetings, uh, spoken at kind of citizen events. And so being able to see that impact and, and, you know, better communicate what positive things science can do, right? For society, especially for like really urgent challenges in society, uh, has been both fulfilling. And I hope in times like this, where, you know, science is looked at by different people, uh, in different lenses,

32:58hopefully has been important just broadly, right? And communicating the value of all the things we do in, in, uh, the scientific enterprise. Wow. That's like really, really great. And such a great experience to, to see your research actually be, um, implemented into like real water treatment plants and having all these pilots, um, that are up and running. And I mean, I, you know, I always wear normal PPE in lab, right? You know, uh, glasses, lab coat. Uh, I never thought I'd be

33:30wearing a hard, hard hat for PPE, but, uh, when we go into these water treatment plants, that's the kind of PPE we need. So it's, it's been a really cool experience to be out in a field like that. Yeah. And I bet you meet so many new and different, like people and experts in different fields from this. And it's just a really, um, I guess, eyeopening experience to, um, be in this completely other field. That's also kind of related because research. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Given, so given the pervasive nature of PFAS, um, many of our listeners may feel overwhelmed with this.

Reducing PFAS Exposure

34:05What are some effective and practical steps that we can take to reduce our exposure to PFAS in our daily lives? Oh yeah, that's a great question. Um, one, if you're on a, if you're in a place where you get municipal water, um, you know, it is highly likely that your municipal water plant, uh, publicly posts, right? It's water quality. And most at this point, uh, posts and soon they will be required to post any levels of PFAS that they detect. Uh, so I think the first thing

34:38to do is like you, you know, a lot of people have that information available and they might not know it. So go onto that website and check if there are levels of PFAS that exceed the maximum contaminant limit that was put out by the EPA. Um, and you know, uh, if they are testing and there's not those maximum contaminant levels, right? I don't think you have to worry about water as a source of contamination. Uh, if there are, for instance, the water in my town here, um, Chapel Hill, uh, we do, uh, you know, our utility, which is called, which is Nick, which is, uh, nicknamed OASA does post the

35:15levels and they are above the maximum contaminant limit. They're currently implementing technology because they're required to, uh, by 2030, um, to meet the EPA, the new EPA's regulations, but of course they don't have that built yet. Uh, so in my house, I have two young kids and a wife who has been right, been intermittently pregnant through the last, uh, eight years. Uh, so we use a regular carbon filter that is implemented in our fridge. We change it out every six months and, you know, because we have low levels of PFAS and otherwise our drinking water is quite clean, you know, I'm

35:49confident that that will, that that does remove, uh, the PFAS that's in our water. Uh, and I've actually, you know, just sent some of the water that comes through that carbon filter out for an external test and it showed that we didn't have PFAS in that water. Um, if you are more concerned than that, um, you know, the best way to remove this, if you have the financial means is a reverse osmosis system. Um, you can install these, you know, under your sink, you can buy them at Lowe's or Home Depot. You know, they're a bit expensive and you have to, you know, every year kind of replenish, um, the salt solution, but that will definitely remove, uh, all the PFAS. Uh, but it's quite expensive,

36:24right? So not everybody can, can go do that. The other things, the other thing I think that you can do that would have a large impact is, um, you know, another source of PFAS that may even be more than water, although the data isn't as clear is food packaging, especially takeout food packaging. So the more that you can, you know, um, you know, not do as much takeout food, either go to a restaurant

36:57or cook at home, uh, the less exposure essentially you can have to packages that are really grease resistant, um, that are packaging your food up before you eat it. Uh, I would say the better, right. And that's one of the things we do, um, in, uh, for our families. Like if we want to go to a restaurant, we actually just go to the restaurant as opposed to getting takeout one, just because of the packaging waste period, right? The amount of packaging waste that comes with takeout food is a lot. And as somebody who cares about reducing waste, uh, we don't want to do that.

37:27Uh, but also a lot of that, you know, food packaging, uh, has been known to contain PFAS. So that's another exposure route that you can mitigate. Yeah. Thank you. That's really informative for me and I bet a lot of our listeners as well. And so going on to, um, your recognition

Blavatnik Award Recognition

37:46for the Blavatnik award. So we noticed that you were the first one to actually win this for, from UNC. And what does this award mean to you? Yeah. So it, um, I think I'm very proud to win it coming from a state institution. Um, and especially, and this is one of the things that, uh, I think has again, opened my eyes to some of the impact, you know, um, research that's really dedicated to

38:16making an impact on your local community that you can have. Right. Cause one of the big reasons I will, um, I think this award, uh, was given to me was a lot of the work I've been doing on PFAS, right? So this is kind of, this is a really big national award. Uh, and part of the reason I got it was focusing very local on the problems that I could solve right in my community. And that affected my state at a state funded institution. Um, so definitely I'm very proud to, to do that at a state institution, kind of, uh, uh, serving the people of the state. And I think, uh, that's a

38:48lesson. I think that I'm trying to communicate more broadly, right. Is, is often solving, you know, challenging topics that are relevant to the people closest to you can have local impact, but can also have global impact. Right. And I, and I didn't realize that I would say before, uh, I started this work. Uh, and then in terms of what it means to me more broadly, um, you know, science, as you kind of said before, we're all standing on the shoulders of each other and, you know, science is really a team sport. Uh, and so from, you know, from the first time I had my lab,

39:26uh, the first thing on my group philosophy document, whenever any prospective students or postdoc or employee comes to talk to me is that, you know, we want to have the goal of being the most innovative polymer chemistry group internationally. And whether or not we meet that goal is really besides the point. Uh, but I've been really lucky to have people in my lab throughout the last 10 years who are, who are motivated to meet that goal and who, you know, want to engage with other people

39:58who are really excited about science and who really want to do science that has an impact, uh, and, and science at the highest level we can. Uh, and so it's a really a testament to that team that we've built. Uh, and obviously people go in and out, um, over the last 10 years. And I've just been really lucky to have, uh, wonderful people who've, who've been committed to that goal and we've had a lot of fun along the way. Uh, obviously science is never easy, right? And, and easy things often aren't the things that are most fulfilling. So there's been lots of challenges along the way, but it's, um, it makes me

40:33really proud to look back at kind of the culture we've all set together, uh, really striving to do the best work we can. And then, you know, awards like this are kind of outcomes of all that work over a really long time. And a lot of those individual people, right. Kind of don't get the recognition and because of the way this is structured, it comes to me, but, uh, it's really been a team's worth the whole time and everybody's contributed a lot. Yeah. I really love your insight that in helping and trying to fix local problems that, then, that, that can, um, in turn help us

41:10globally. And also, of course, all of the students who work under you are also really important to this goal as well. And so looking into the future, how do you plan to use this award in your future direction and career? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, I think fundamentally we want to keep doing, we want to keep working with the same philosophy, right? So I mentioned our philosophy is we want, you know, we want to continue to be one of the most innovative polymer chemistry groups

41:43and internationally. Um, and, you know, uh, and I say like, we don't do that by kind of focusing on these awards. We do that by focusing on doing the best science in the best way each and every day. Right. So I feel like if you focus on, uh, often I say to graduate students, graduate students or graduate school is five years. It's a long time, but if you learn one thing every day by the end of five years, you will know a lot of stuff. Right. And so it's, you know, I don't, in some,

42:16in a lot of ways, I don't want to change what we do at all. Right. Because I want to focus on process, focus on getting a little bit better each day. And then a lot of the positive outcomes come out of that. Um, in terms of using the award, I think, you know, as I've grown in my career, you know, starting, uh, a new lab 10 years ago with like four students, right. I've come to recognize this benefits of balancing fundamental research and applied research. And, and the area where I have less expertise is applied research and then translating that out. Right. So I want to use

42:50some of that, this award to help in that process of translating this right into an actual right product that, that people can buy and hopefully they find value in it and buy it. Uh, and then I feel like that will hope that will round out my experience in that area where I have less experience on. And then for the rest of my career, we'll be able to go forward with, you know, hopefully experience in fundamental research, applied research and translation, and be able to apply this to more problems. Yeah, that's amazing. And I'm really excited to see where this, uh, research takes you

43:24next. So to end this interview, we have one final question for you. Um, what piece of advice would you give for young chemists and scientists? Yeah, that, that piece of advice hasn't changed, uh, really in the last, uh, few years. Like my number one piece of advice is to trust yourself.

43:47You know, when you go through this really intense educational experience, that is right. Often graduate school, um, I feel like students have a lot more knowledge than they realize. Uh, graduate school is a place where you're constantly judged, right? You're constantly evaluated. Uh, and so I feel like, right, this, this idea of imposter syndrome is kind of always, always creeping in. Uh, but, you know, you know, a lot in, you know, a defined area coming out of that. And I really feel like you

44:18need, uh, people need to trust their instincts more. And, you know, even if other people are telling them that, you know, X direction isn't correct, or they don't see the value in, in a direction, you know, I think you need to kind of stick to your guns and go for it. Uh, this kind of partially came out of my experience, right? Some of the things we started at the beginning of my lab. Um, I, I kind of mentioned to many people and many people who I had a lot of respect for kind of didn't see my vision and were like, yeah, maybe that'll work. And I'm really happy. I kind of was like, well, you know,

44:52this is a really unique time. I think this is important. So I'm going to do it. And it, it turned out to have a lot more impact than even I could have imagined. Right. And so like all scientists have this, right. If you think of Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, right. The, uh, one of the things he says is you really need 10,000 hours before you become an expert at something. Well, if you calculated it out, graduate school is like just over 10,000 hours. Like you were really an expert by the time you get out of that. Uh, so trust yourself and, you know, uh, hopefully you can,

45:26I know like you have the skills after a graduate degree in science to like really make an impact. Uh, and I think you should, uh, everybody should have more confidence, right. In that fact and trust themselves and, and, uh, go make the impact that they, that they think they can make. Yeah. Thank you so much for that insight. And thank you for your time to speak with us today. It was really, really great learning more from you and hearing all about the amazing directions that your research is headed. Yeah. That was such an insightful conversation. I love his story and how you can

46:02just see the implications of the work he does. It's incredible how deep chemistry, like modifying CH bonds can have such a practical impact. Exactly. What I found so inspiring about Dr. Lightbarth was his attention to real world problems in his local community and how he took active steps to address them. I'm definitely more motivated to read more about local issues in my community and consider how I can make a difference too. Me too. It's a really a great testament to the importance of not just science, but journalism, activism, and engineering to make a real difference from

46:38plastic waste to PFAS contamination. These are just some of the challenges that need attention. My hope is that with people using their talents across different fields, we can work together to tackle these problems and more and create real lasting solutions. Well said, Dia. I couldn't agree more. And to our listeners, thank you for joining us today. From understanding the challenges of recycling polymers to the persistence of PFAS in our environment, I hope today's episode inspires you to think about the science around you and how we can all take steps, big or small, to make a difference.

47:12We'll see you next time.

47:15Thank you for listening to Let's Talk Chemistry, a podcast by Chemtalk. We hope you enjoyed it. For more information on today's episode and countless chemistry resources, please visit our website at www.chemistrytalk.org.