Welcome to the Sustainable Supramolecular Materials Lab!
We are a multidisciplinary team of chemists and materials scientists advancing sustainable solutions for a low carbon and circular future. By uncovering and harnessing how molecules or polymers interact with each other on a molecular level, we design innovative materials for decarbonisation, a circular materials economy and biomedical applications. Our work bridges fundamental science with real-world impact, contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals on Good Health and Well-being (Goal 3) and Sustainable Cities and Communities (Goal 11).
Key Research Goals:
1. Polymer/ Plastic Valorisation
More than 300 million tonnes of plastic waste are produced each year, with the vast majority being poorly biodegradable, and are disposed unsustainably by landfilling and incineration. Yet due to their optimal material properties, durability and low cost of production, replacing these existing plastics with new biodegradable ones are unfeasible for the foreseeable future. In our group, we are interested in transforming end-of-life plastics into industrially-viable small molecules (e.g. carboxylic acids) and functional polymers of value to society, with a special emphasis on polymers containing inert C-C backbones (e.g. polyolefins, polystyrene and PVC) that make up more than 60% of all plastics produced. These are achieved by exploiting polymer-catalyst interactions and through polymer-polymer interactions after post-synthetic chemical modifications. By turning low cost and abundant end-of-life plastics into feedstock for chemical and material production, we aim to reduce their carbon footprint resulting from waste plastic incineration, whilst contributing towards a circular materials economy.
Selected publications:
Post-synthetic plastic conversion into functional materials:
- Selective surface oxidation of polyethylenes in aqueous solvents: Aqueous-Based Biomimetic Porphyrin-Catalyzed Surface Oxidation of Polyethylenes for Enhanced 3D-Printability, J. Am. Chem. Soc, 2026, 148, 22726
- Polyethylene backbone editing: Post-Synthetic Amide Insertion Into Polyethylenes Augments Diverse Physical Properties and Enables Branching-Dependent Recyclability, Adv. Funct. Mater, 2026, 36, e13841
- Plastics to energy storage materials: A cradle-to-cradle approach for successive upcycling of polyethylene to polymer electrolytes to organic acids,Mater Chem A, 2024, 12, 20947; Upcycling waste poly (ethylene terephthalate) into polymer electrolytes, J. Mater Chem A
- Transforming polyethylene into water-soluble antifungal polymers, Macromolecules, 2023, 56, 815
Converting plastics into useful small molecules:
- Upcycling of Polystyrene to 1, 2-Disubstituted Oxygenated Aromatics Through Backbone Rearrangement and Oxidation Reactions, Angew Chem Int Ed, 2025, 64, e202515072
- Pyrolytic depolymerization of polyolefins catalysed by zirconium-based UiO-66 metal-organic frameworks, Angew Chem Int Ed, 2024, 63, e202408718
- Enhancing the photocatalytic upcycling of polystyrene to benzoic acid: a combined computational-experimental approach for acridinium catalyst design, Chem Sci, 2024, 15, 1061
- Organocatalytic aerobic oxidative degradation of polystyrene to aromatic acids, ACS Sustainable Chem Eng
2. Materials for CO2 Capture
Advanced materials that are capable of selective CO2 capture are important for mitigating climate change and achieving national decarbonisation targets. Our research focuses on engineering next-generation sorbent materials, including porous frameworks such as metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and advanced polymeric systems, designed for high-capacity and selective CO₂ capture from humid air and industrial flue gas streams. These material platforms offer complementary strengths: MOFs provide unparalleled molecular-level tunability and exceptional adsorption capacity, while polymers offer superior processability and mechanical robustness. We leverage on AI-assistance and high throughput experimentation to accelerate discovery of novel sorbent materials.
Beyond material performance, we are committed to developing sustainable and scalable synthetic strategies for their production. This includes reducing or eliminating the use of hazardous organic solvents and exploring alternative feedstocks derived from polymer and biomass waste. Through this integrated approach, we aim to bridge advanced materials design with practical, environmentally-responsible deployment for practical CO2 capture.
Selected publications:
- Aqueous Upcycling of Polyethylene Furanoate From Mixed Plastic Feeds Into Metal-Organic Frameworks, Angew Chem Int Ed, 2026, 65, e4173692
- Catalytic Poly (ethylene terephthalate) Aromatic C-H Hydroxylation for Upcycling to Specialty Chemicals and Multivariate Metal-Organic Frameworks, Chem. Mater, 2025, 37, 4719
3. Self-Assembled Polymeric Materials
Polymer self-assembly offers a powerful route to creating functional materials. By harnessing non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, electrostatics, and hydrophobic interactions, spontaneous molecular organisation into well-defined architectures can be achieved, allowing tunable properties for applications in drug delivery, responsive materials, and advanced coatings. Together with the team of Prof Loh Xian Jun, we are interested in developing self-assembled polymeric hydrogel materials for biomedical applications, whose gelation can be triggered by temperature changes or other external stimuli such as pH and light. By controlling self-assembly from the molecular level, we are able to customise gel properties for sustained release of different therapeutic agents, compatibility with different materials (e.g. MOFs) for multidrug release, as well as for various therapeutic applications.
Selected publications:
- Visible Light Photo-Cross-Linked Thermogel─ A Single-Component Hybrid Supramolecular-Covalent Hydrogel for Sustained Drug Release, ACS Applied Mater Interfaces, 2026, 18, 29054
- Single-component cationic polyethylenimine thermogel for sustained and localized gene delivery to combat multi-drug resistant cancer, BMEMat, 2025, 3, e70020
- One-Year Ultralong Intravitreal Release of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor from Supramolecular Temperature-Responsive Hydrogel, Biomacromolecules, 2025, 26, 8452
- MOF-thermogel composites for differentiated and sustained dual drug delivery, ACS Biomater Sci Eng, 2023, 9, 5724
- High molecular weight hyper-branched PCL-based thermogelling vitreous endotamponades, Biomaterials, 2022, 280, 121262
The Team
About Team Leader
Dr Jason Y. C. Lim obtained his DPhil in Inorganic Chemistry (2017) from University of Oxford (U.K.) under the supervision of Prof. Paul D. Beer, and subsequently performed post-doctoral research with Prof. Charlotte K. Williams at the same institute. He is a Group Leader at IMRE, and also holds an Adjunct Assistant Professorship at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, NUS. He is a recipient of the NRF Fellowship (Class of 2023), a JMCA Emerging Investigator (2024) and has been named amongst the top 2% scientists in organic chemistry (Elsevier-Stanford) since 2021.
The team:
Dr Albert Ong, Dr Tristan Tan, Dr Danwei Zhang, Dr Haonan Zhao, Dr Qianyu Lin, Dr Rebecca Khoo, Dr Nguyen Thi Bao Nguyen, Ms Loh Wei Wei, Ms Jaime Pang, Ms Yan Hui Lee, Ms Nguyen Hoang Ngoc Anh