Intermix Performance Materials

OUR STORY

Intermix Performance Materials' multi-block compatibilizer additive technology increases the efficient and cost effective recycling of post-consumer mixed plastic waste and produces higher quality resultant resins.  The technology allows the development of superior performance polymer alloys comprised of polypropylene and polyethylene.

TECHNOLOGY

Our multi-block polymer additive enables the valorization of mixed plastics at low cost producing a higher quality resultant resin.

Polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) account for about 2/3 of all plastics in the post-consumer waste stream. However, due to their different structures they are not miscible, causing them to phase separate, somewhat like oil and water. This results in plastic mixtures with unacceptably poor strength. One way to create higher quality recycled materials is to perform careful manual separation, but this is expensive and the separated materials still exhibit performance that is inferior to pure PP and PE unless separation is near perfect.

Intermix has developed a multi-block copolymer (MBCP) that when added to a stream of mixed PP and PE enables these two polymers to be combined, yielding a polymer alloy that is mechanically comparable to pure PE and PP samples, without laborious and expensive sorting. The MBCP additive is particularly potent, compatibilizing mixtures of PE and PP with as little as 0.5% of the additive and at contamination levels of up to 70/30.

Geoff Coates
Scientific Chair & Co-Founder

Geoff Coates is the Tisch University Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University. He leads the Coates Research Group whose focus is the development of new synthetic strategies for producing polymers of defined structure. Geoff is the scientific cofounder of Novomer and Ecolectro. He received a B.A. in Chemistry from Wabash College, a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University, and performed a post-doctorate at the California Institute of Technology.  Geoff is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors.

Ting-Wei Lin
Principal Investigator

Ting-Wei Lin is a current graduate student in the Coates Group at Cornell University. During his graduate work, Ting-Wei focused on block copolymer synthesis for improved properties. He earned a B.S. in Chemistry from National Taiwan University and will receive his PhD degree in Chemistry from Cornell in January 2021. He will be responsible for carrying out the R&D work for Intermix.

Andrew Arriz
Business Analyst

Andrew Arriz is a recent graduate from Cornell University where he received a B.A. in Government. He works closely with the CEO and the other co-founders in developing and implementing corporate strategy in addition to identifying new applications for Intermix and its exciting technology.