Lauren Nicole Pincus, an assistant professor of chemistry at George Washington University is a winner of the 2024 Sustainable Futures Initiative Grant Program. The grants are awarded to scientists in charge of developing transformative chemistries that address U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and are passionate about instilling the importance of green and sustainable chemistry in their students.
Pincus’ project, titled “Fueling a circular economy: selective recovery of endangered elements from photovoltaic waste using ion-imprinted biopolymers,” focuses on developing sustainable solutions for photovoltaic (PV) waste management. As the use of PV technology continues to quickly expand, a need has been identified to develop sustainable solutions to handle end-of-life PV waste, which is expected to reach about 80 million tons by 2050. Pincus’ group will design materials to selectively mine endangered elements from PV waste. Research efforts will also focus on the desorption or recovery of the mined elements, building towards the overall goal of utilizing recovered endangered elements as raw materials in the PV manufacturing process.