Polymers are everywhere in our modern lives, from sterile hospital gloves and medical tubing to food packaging and grocery bags at the supermarket, to the plastics, foams, and coatings that make up our cars, electronics, and homes. They are economic power materials, with exceptional mechanical properties such as strength, high processability and low cost. They are also accumulating in our oceans and inside our bodies, both in bulk and in the form of microplastics. To maintain our standard of living we must figure out how to maintain the benefits of polymers while reducing and avoiding their adverse health effects such as chronic inflammation and endocrine disruption. This is no easy task, and much research and development (R&D) on polymers will be needed to keep up with the regulatory, environmental and health concerns that have and will continue to emerge.

Imagine a world where new polymers and processes could be developed and commercialized 10x faster than today. What discoveries could be made and what expensive or unhealthy materials could be replaced if the barrier for R&D was lower? The polymer SDL consists of modular automated equipment designed for agile application to a wide variety of polymer R&D applications. The lab synthesizes, purifies, and characterizes polymer libraries using AI-guided feedback to target user-specified properties. Polymer synthesis and processing is monitored in real time to control molecular weight and composition. With the right properties, these polymers can replace forever chemicals such as PFAS (or forever chemicals) in food and electronics, be broken down and re-used in more efficient ways than ever before, protect drugs and medicine from breaking down prematurely in the body, help reduce the cost of batteries, and more.