News and Updates
Our group’s recent breakthroughs, publications, and project milestones.
Dec 5th 2025: Our group welcomes a new member - PhD candidate Harsh Gandhi, pursuing a degree in Chemical Engineering.
Sept 15th: Our group welcomes two new members - Arwa Tunkiwala and Rishabh Bandodkar, both pursuing MS degrees from NYU Tandon.
August 19th: Pavel gave an invited talk about plastic waste hydrocracking at the Symposium on Innovative Catalysis during the ACS Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C.
August 18th: our group has been awarded an Climate Seed Award from New York University! This support will allow us to initiate a new direction on process electrification.
August 6th: Congratulations to Alice and Aderline for winning the second place at the Annual 19th Undergraduate Summer Research Program Symposium!
July 21st: Pavel received the Young Scientist Travel Award from ACS Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) and the CIBA Foundation! This award will support travel and registration for ACS Fall National Meeting in Washington, DC.
July 17: Pavel gave a talk on scale-up of plastic upcycling technologies at the Gordon Research Conference on Plastic Recycling and Upcycling in New Hampshire.
May 30th: The group came together for a small celebration to mark the end of the semester!
May 14th: Congratulations to Xavier Shen for successfully passing his qualifying exam—well done!
May 6th: our group has been awarded a Research Catalyst Grant from New York University! This support will allow us to deepen our work in polymer characterization for catalytic upcycling and recycling. We're grateful to the Office of the Provost for this investment in our research.
April 10th: Pavel presented at the 2025 REMADE Circular Economy Technology Summit & Conference in Washington, DC.
His talk highlighted recent research breakthroughs in plastic upcycling from his lab and broadly in the field, with a focus on the R&D challenges that remain in scaling these processes. The presentation sparked productive discussion around the role of advanced catalysis and reactor engineering in enabling a more sustainable materials economy.
January 30th, 2025: Pavel visited the University of Massachusetts Lowell to give a Department Seminar.
The talk titled "Repurposing Old Catalytic Chemistry to Solve Sustainability Challenges and Transform Plastic Waste to Value" explored innovative catalytic upcycling methods for converting polyolefin plastic waste into valuable products, addressing the complexities of real-world waste streams through advanced catalyst and reactor design. Pavel also shared insights from his research group’s work on sustainable chemical processes and his prior experience in industrial process development.
It was a true pleasure to connect with colleagues and tour the impressive facilities in the Chemical and Plastics Engineering Departments.