Prof. Athina Anastasaki earned her B.S. in chemistry from the University of Athens and a Ph.D. from the University of Warwick under Prof. Dave Haddleton. She then joined Prof. Craig Hawker’s group at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a Marie Curie Fellow. Athina started her independent career at ETH Zurich in 2019 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2025. She is the Head of the Laboratory of Sustainable Polymers, focusing on modern polymer chemistry and recycling methodologies.

2025 NASA Symp

Depolymerization of commercial polymethacrylates triggered by visible light

The reversion of polymers with C–C backbones to their monomers represents a promising path to alleviate the growing plastic waste stream. However, depolymerizing such stable materials remains a challenge, with state-of-the-art methods relying on “designer” polymers that are not commercially produced. Here, we report a main-chain-initiated, visible-light-triggered depolymerization directly applicable to commercial polymers. By in-situ generation of chlorine radicals directly from the solvent, near-quantitative depolymerization of polymethacrylates could be achieved regardless of their end-group and molecular weight.