Taylor F. Nelson

Taylor F. Nelson

Polymer chemist studying how plastics and new polymer materials degrade in the environment.

Synthetic polymers are produced at enormous scale, with a growing need for more sustainable materials is designed to be biodegradable. Whether a material actually degrades in the environment, and how quickly, depends on its chemical structure, the material’s form, and the conditions it meets. My research quantifies these processes with analytical tools that can follow polymer carbon directly.

Polymer Structure-Property-Biodegradability Relationships

Macromolecular Analytical Chemistry

We work to develop new analytical approaches to study the breakdown of polymers in the environmental. Examples include 13C labeling together with stable isotope probing (SIP) of CO2 and microbial biomass during biodegradation, and NMR diffusion-ordered spectroscopy (DOSY) techniques to study macromolecular changes to polymers upon e.g., photoirradiation.

Publications:

  1. Nelson, T. F.*; Ward, C. P. Diffusion-ordered spectroscopy for rapid and facile determination of consumer plastic molecular weight. Analytical Chemistry 2023, 95, 8560–8568.
  2. Nelson, T. F.; Baumgartner, R.; Jaggi, M.; Bernasconi, S. M.; Battagliarin, G.; Sinkel, C.; Künkel, A.; Kohler, H.-P. E.; McNeill, K.; Sander, M. Biodegradation of poly(butylene succinate) in soil laboratory incubations assessed by stable carbon isotope labelling. Nature Communications 2022, 13, 5691.

Environmental Fate of Consumer and Novel Plastics

We study how sunlight degrades consumer plastics at the sea surface, and how formulation choices and biofouling change that fate.

Publications:

  1. Walsh, A. N.; Mazzotta, M. G.; Nelson, T. F.; Reddy, C. M.; Ward, C. P. Synergy between sunlight, titanium dioxide, and microbes enhances cellulose diacetate degradation in the ocean. Environmental Science & Technology 2022, 56, 13810–13819.
  2. Nelson, T. F.*; Reddy, C. M.; Ward, C. P. Product formulation controls the impact of biofouling on consumer plastic photochemical fate in the ocean. Environmental Science & Technology 2021, 55, 8898–8907.

Ongoing and recent funded projects

  • Elucidating microbial carbon partitioning in soils with position-specific 13C labelling. Young Scholar Fund, University of Konstanz (2026)
  • Assessing the controls of plastic photochemical reactivity in the surface ocean. U.S. NSF Award No. 2202621, co-PI with Collin Ward, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (2022–2025)
  • Elucidation of the environmental degradation of crystalline polyethylene-like polymers using isotope labelling. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Konstanz (2022–2024)