{"id":52671,"date":"2026-04-01T15:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T19:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/chembe\/?post_type=news&#038;p=52671"},"modified":"2026-04-01T15:37:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T19:37:51","slug":"brandon-bukowski-receives-doe-early-career-research-program-award","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/chembe\/news\/brandon-bukowski-receives-doe-early-career-research-program-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandon Bukowski Receives DOE Early Career Research Program Award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/faculty\/brandon-c-bukowski\/\">Brandon Bukowski<\/a><span>, an assistant professor in the\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/chembe\/\">Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering<\/a><span>\u00a0and an associate researcher with the\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/energyinstitute.jhu.edu\/\">Ralph O\u2019Connor Sustainable Energy Institute<\/a><span>, was recently named a recipient of the\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/science.osti.gov\/early-career\">Department of Energy\u2019s Early Career Research Program Award<\/a><span>. Early Career Awards recognize early-stage scholars with high levels of promise and excellence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Bukowski\u2019s project, titled \u201cDesigning Site Ensembles for Efficient Plastic Upcycling to Fuels,\u201d will support his efforts to fundamentally rethink how plastics are recycled\u2014moving beyond today\u2019s limited and often inefficient methods. Most conventional recycling processes degrade plastics over time, producing lower-quality materials that cannot be reused indefinitely. Bukowski\u2019s research focuses on a more ambitious goal: breaking plastics down into their original molecular building blocks, known as monomers, or even directly transforming them into liquid fuels such as jet fuel or gasoline, so they can be rebuilt into new materials without loss of quality.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne question is, can we reverse the process\u2014go from the polymer back to the building blocks?\u201d Bukowski said. \u201cIf we can do that, we can unmake plastics and create something new, rather than continuously degrading them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The research\u2019s implications could be far-reaching\u2014reducing reliance on petroleum-based plastic production and helping create a more circular materials economy. More efficient recycling technologies could reduce plastic pollution, lower manufacturing emissions, and ultimately reshape how everyday products\u2014from packaging to consumer goods\u2014are produced and reused.<\/p>\n<p>Funding from the CAREER Award will primarily support graduate students and computing resources, enabling Bukowski\u2019s team to run complex simulations that model how polymers degrade and how those processes can be controlled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is why I became a professor\u2014to work on hard problems like this,\u201d Bukowski said. \u201cReceiving this award brings a feeling of relief and satisfaction, but also a recognition that there\u2019s a long road ahead for solving these difficult problems in the chemicals industry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This article was originally posted by the <a href=\"https:\/\/energyinstitute.jhu.edu\/brandon-bukowski-receives-doe-early-career-research-program-award\/\">Ralph O&#8217;Connor Sustainable Energy Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-52671","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","news_categories-awards-and-honors","news_categories-faculty"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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