ITHACA, New York, Sept. 10, 2026 - Geoffrey W. Coates of Cornell University and Marc A. Hillmyer of the University of Minnesota have won the 2026 Balzan Prize for Biodegradable Polymers from Renewable Sources, recognizing decades of work aimed at redesigning plastics from the molecular level.
The award is significant because the research addresses two of the hardest problems in modern materials science at the same time: how polymers are made and what happens to them after use.
Traditional plastics are often derived from fossil hydrocarbons and optimized for durability. That durability is economically useful, but it becomes an environmental liability when products are discarded and remain in landfills or ecosystems for decades.
Coates and Hillmyer have pursued a different materials architecture.
Their work uses molecular design and catalysis to turn renewable feedstocks and recovered carbon dioxide into polymers that can deliver useful mechanical performance while also being designed for degradation, recycling or more circular material flows.
The International Balzan Foundation awarded the pair its 2026 prize in the natural sciences category “Biodegradable Polymers from Renewable Sources.”
The prize is worth 750,000 Swiss francs, approximately $930,000 at the foundation’s stated conversion, and half must be directed toward research projects involving young scholars and scientists.
That requirement makes the prize unusual.
It recognizes established scientific achievement while automatically recycling a substantial portion of the award into the next generation of research.
The core scientific problem is bigger than replacing petroleum
The plastics problem is often simplified into a search for “bioplastics.”
That can be misleading.
A polymer made partly from renewable carbon is not automatically biodegradable.
A biodegradable polymer is not automatically recyclable.
A recyclable polymer is not necessarily produced with low energy use.
And replacing fossil feedstocks does not by itself solve collection, sorting, contamination or end-of-life infrastructure.
The deeper challenge is to control the entire molecular system.
Chemists must decide which monomers are used, how they are connected, how strong the resulting material will be, what catalysts are needed to manufacture it efficiently and how the polymer behaves when exposed to heat, water, enzymes, industrial recycling processes or the environment.
The work recognized by the Balzan Prize is important because it connects those questions rather than treating sustainability as a single property.
Why carbon dioxide can become a chemical feedstock
One of Coates’ best-known research directions involves incorporating carbon dioxide into polymers.
CO2 is normally discussed as a greenhouse gas.
Chemically, however, it is also a carbon-containing molecule that can serve as a feedstock if a reaction pathway can be made sufficiently efficient.
Coates’ research group has studied catalysts that copolymerize carbon dioxide with epoxides to form polycarbonates.
In this chemistry, the catalyst helps alternate carbon dioxide-derived units with epoxide-derived units along a polymer chain.
The result is a material in which some of the carbon that would otherwise come from conventional petrochemical feedstocks can instead come from captured or recovered CO2.
This does not mean the plastic removes climate change.
Using CO2 as a feedstock does not permanently solve emissions if the carbon is later released, and the total climate benefit depends on the energy source, feedstock origin, manufacturing process, product lifetime and end-of-life pathway.
But chemically incorporating CO2 can reduce dependence on fossil-derived carbon and create useful products from a molecule that is otherwise often treated only as waste.
Catalysts are the hidden technology
The visible product is plastic.
The enabling technology is often the catalyst.
A catalyst changes the rate and selectivity of a chemical reaction without being consumed in the same way as the primary reactants.
For polymer manufacturing, catalyst design can determine whether a reaction is commercially realistic.
It affects temperature, reaction speed, molecular weight, stereochemistry, defect rates and the proportion of desired polymer produced relative to unwanted byproducts.
Coates’ group has developed and studied highly active metal-based catalysts for CO2 and epoxide copolymerization, including beta-diiminate zinc systems.
The scientific goal is not simply to make a polymer once in a laboratory.
It is to control the polymer’s architecture precisely enough that the material has predictable mechanical and chemical properties.
That distinction separates proof-of-concept chemistry from industrial materials science.
Molecular architecture determines whether a polymer is useful
Two plastics can contain similar elements and still behave very differently.
The reason is molecular architecture.
Chain length, branching, crystallinity, stereochemistry, functional groups and the sequence of repeating units can change stiffness, transparency, thermal resistance, toughness and degradation behavior.
Coates’ research has explored polycarbonates with tailored structures, including materials derived from CO2 and renewable molecules such as limonene-related feedstocks.
The broader principle is that sustainability cannot be added at the end of product development.
It has to be designed into the chemistry from the beginning.
A polymer intended for packaging needs different properties from one designed for coatings, foams, adhesives or engineering components.
The challenge is to create materials that industry will actually use.
A sustainable polymer that performs poorly or costs several times more than the incumbent material will struggle to displace it at scale.
Hillmyer’s work adds another part of the circular-materials problem
Marc A. Hillmyer’s work has focused heavily on sustainable polymer chemistry, including polymers derived from renewable resources and systems designed for improved end-of-life behavior.
The Balzan Foundation explicitly recognized the collaborative contribution of Coates and Hillmyer, citing their combination of molecular design and catalysis and their movement from fundamental chemistry toward industrial materials and technologies.
That last part is critical.
Polymer science does not end with a reaction flask.
To matter economically, a new material must be synthesized reproducibly, processed using industrial equipment, survive real operating conditions and compete with existing materials on performance and cost.
The $930,000 prize is also a research-financing mechanism
Each 2026 Balzan Prize is valued at 750,000 Swiss francs, about €800,000 or $930,000 using the foundation’s published approximations.
Half of each prize must be allocated to research projects involving young scholars and scientists.
For Coates and Hillmyer, that means a substantial portion of the award will not function as a conventional personal prize.
It becomes research capital.
That funding can support graduate researchers, postdoctoral scientists, experimental materials, analytical equipment access and high-risk projects that may be difficult to fund through shorter grant cycles.
In materials chemistry, this matters because moving from a promising molecule to a credible platform can require years of synthesis, characterization, degradation testing and scale-up work.
Industrial translation has already been part of Coates’ research path
Coates’ work has repeatedly crossed the boundary between academic chemistry and commercialization.
He helped found Novomer, a company created to commercialize polymer technologies using renewable feedstocks and waste carbon dioxide.
His research has also contributed to newer commercialization efforts focused on improving the compatibility and performance of recycled plastics.
That history is relevant to the Balzan citation because the foundation did not recognize only theoretical advances.
It specifically highlighted the progression from fundamental science to industrial materials and technologies.
This is one of the central bottlenecks in climate-oriented materials research.
Universities can discover new chemistries.
Industry must make them cheaply, safely and at scale.
Recycling is partly a chemistry problem, not just a collection problem
Plastic recycling is usually discussed as a waste-management issue.
But many recycling failures begin at the molecular level.
Different polymers are chemically incompatible.
Polyethylene and polypropylene, for example, are among the world’s most widely used plastics, but when mixed during mechanical recycling they can form weak materials because the polymers do not blend well at the molecular scale.
That is why sorting is so important.
It is also why compatibilization chemistry matters.
Research connected to Coates’ group has explored ways to make mixed recycled polymers behave more like useful engineered materials rather than degraded waste streams.
This is a fundamentally different strategy from simply asking consumers to sort better.
It attempts to redesign the chemistry so recycling systems can tolerate more complexity.
Biodegradable does not mean “safe to throw anywhere”
The word biodegradable is frequently misused in consumer marketing.
A polymer may biodegrade under industrial composting conditions but remain stable in cold seawater.
Another may degrade only under specific humidity, temperature or microbial conditions.
Some materials fragment physically without fully mineralizing into benign products.
For scientists and regulators, the key questions are therefore conditions, rate and degradation products.
A credible biodegradable-material claim requires evidence about where degradation occurs, how long it takes and what remains afterward.
This is why high-performance sustainable polymer research is difficult.
The same molecular stability that makes a material useful during service can resist degradation after disposal.
Designing a polymer to be stable when needed and degradable when desired is a controlled chemistry problem.
The market opportunity is enormous, but replacement will be selective
Global plastics production is measured in hundreds of millions of tonnes annually.
No single polymer family is likely to replace all conventional plastics.
Commodity packaging, medical devices, automotive components, construction materials, electronics and industrial coatings have radically different requirements.
Sustainable polymers will therefore compete application by application.
Some may win because they reduce fossil feedstock use.
Others may win because they are chemically recyclable.
Some may be valuable because they degrade under controlled conditions.
Others may succeed because they allow mixed waste streams to retain higher material value.
The important economic question is not whether a new polymer is “green.”
It is whether its full lifecycle delivers a measurable advantage while preserving the properties and cost structure required by the market.
Recognition arrives after nearly three decades of work
Coates has described the award as recognition of a collective effort spanning 29 years, involving students, postdoctoral researchers, colleagues and collaborators.
That time horizon is instructive.
Materials revolutions are usually slow.
A new software system can be distributed globally within days.
A new polymer may need years of toxicology, process engineering, manufacturing trials, regulatory review, supply-chain development and customer qualification.
Industrial chemistry therefore rewards persistence.
The Balzan Prize recognizes a research programme that has survived multiple generations of students and technologies while maintaining the same broad objective: make high-performance materials with a better relationship to carbon resources and end-of-life recovery.
Why the prize matters beyond academic chemistry
The most important implication of this work is not that the world has discovered a single replacement for plastic.
It has not.
The implication is that polymer sustainability is becoming a design discipline.
Instead of accepting a material first and dealing with its waste later, researchers are increasingly asking end-of-life questions before the material is commercialized.
Can the carbon source be renewable or recovered?
Can the polymer be chemically recycled?
Can mixed waste be compatibilized?
Can the material degrade under defined conditions?
Can a catalyst make the process energy-efficient enough to scale?
Can the final material meet industrial specifications?
Those questions move environmental performance from waste policy into molecular engineering.
That is a deeper change than replacing one disposable product with another.
The strict conclusion
The 2026 Balzan Prize does not mean biodegradable polymers have solved the global plastics problem.
Waste collection, recycling infrastructure, consumer behavior, economics and regulation remain major constraints.
CO2-derived polymers are not automatically carbon negative.
Renewable feedstocks are not automatically low-impact.
Biodegradability is meaningful only when the degradation conditions and products are understood.
But Coates and Hillmyer are being recognized for something more fundamental: demonstrating that advanced polymer performance, renewable carbon, degradability and recyclability can be treated as linked engineering objectives rather than mutually exclusive goals.
The science is moving the plastics debate away from a simple question of what material to ban.
It is moving toward a harder and potentially more useful question.
How should a material be designed if its origin, performance and end of life all matter from the first molecule onward?
Reader questions
Frequently asked questions
Who won the 2026 Balzan Prize for biodegradable polymers?
Geoffrey W. Coates of Cornell University and Marc A. Hillmyer of the University of Minnesota were named joint winners.
How much is the 2026 Balzan Prize worth?
The prize is worth 750,000 Swiss francs, approximately $930,000 using the Balzan Foundation’s published conversion.
Why is half of the Balzan Prize allocated to young researchers?
Balzan requires half of each subject prize to fund research projects carried out by young scholars and scientists, turning part of the award into future research investment.
How can carbon dioxide be used to make polymers?
Catalysts can enable carbon dioxide to react with molecules such as epoxides, producing polycarbonates in which some of the polymer’s carbon comes from CO2.
Are CO2-derived plastics automatically carbon negative?
No. Their climate impact depends on energy use, feedstock origin, manufacturing, product lifetime and what happens to the carbon at end of life.
Does biodegradable mean a plastic will disappear anywhere in nature?
No. Degradation depends on conditions such as temperature, moisture, microbes and chemistry. A valid biodegradability claim must specify the conditions and degradation products.
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