cbruns

Bruns explores nanotech that turns plastic into fertilizer with RIO seed grant

Michael Kwolek — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 16:27:46 +0000

Bruns explores nanotech that turns plastic into fertilizer with RIO seed grant Michael Kwolek Wed, 06/11/2025 - 10:27

Michael Kwolek

Plastic Fertilizer: Toward Sustainable Waste-Stream Plastics with Low Carbon Content and Cost

PI: Carson J. Bruns, ATLAS Institute + Paul M. Rady Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

Co-PI: Merritt R. Turetsky, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) + Dept. of Ecology

“We must replace the ubiquitous 'forever plastics' with sustainable plastics that (i) degrade fast and harmlessly in the wild and (ii) minimize emissions by combining high recyclability with low carbon content.”

Plastics are a problem. They are made with petroleum, are rarely recycled, and turn into microplastics over time—an increasingly intractable global environmental and health concern.

Current bio-based alternatives have yet to see widespread adoption for a number of reasons. Carson Bruns, associate professor (ATLAS Institute, Mechanical Engineering), aims to change all that with a new line of research in his Emergent Nanotechnology Lab focused on turning agricultural materials into bio-based plastics that can be more easily recycled, composted or even used as fertilizer.

Bruns was recently awarded a 2025 Research & Innovation Seed Grant from �鶹ԭ��’s Research and Innovation Office for this work.

We discussed the thinking behind this research and possible applications (interview lightly edited for clarity):

What are the challenges with bio-based plastics?

The biggest challenge that everybody is dealing with in sustainable plastics right now is that the current options for bio-based and compostable plastics are not actually very good. They don't compete with the oil-based plastics in terms of how tough and flexible they are, so people don't like to use them as much because they crack and they're brittle.

And in reality, you cannot throw such plastics onto your backyard compost pile. They need special conditions to properly break down. You need a composting facility that heats the compost up to 60°C and it has all these fans and equipment to circulate it, and even then, it still doesn't work that well. [Note: This is one of the reasons why A1 Organics, Boulder, Colorado’s main composting partner, stopped accepting these biodegradable plastics.]

Bruns and his team have partnered with Merritt R. Turetsky, Director of Arctic Security; Professor, Ecology, for key elements of this research.

How did the collaboration with professor Turetsky come about?

We've been working on sustainable alternative materials to oil-based plastics for almost the whole time I've been at CU. But the collaboration with Professor Turetsky came when we started trying to characterize the biodegradability of the materials we've been making in the lab.

We've worked with a number of different things—rubbery materials, hydrogels, elastomers, and adhesives [as] alternatives to oil-based rubbers and adhesives. If you want to characterize how biodegradable something is, there are different types of experiments you can do. We approached professor Turetsky to get her advice on how we could go about doing that.

Over the last two semesters, we've had an undergraduate student named Roan Gerrald. He did his honors thesis on this work with advice from professor Turetsky and Aseem Visal, my graduate student. He's done our first compostability experiments on some of the plastic alternative materials that we've already made that are not the ones we proposed in this project, but ones that we have in the lab.

Carson Bruns

What materials are you testing to make these new polymers?

The recipe is [a key] innovation. In general, what you do when you're trying to make a sustainable plastic is you buy some very high-purity materials from a chemical supplier and that makes your science easy to do because you know exactly what you have.

Just buying this molecule in a gallon drum is economically not at all competitive with petroleum. So how do we make something that is cost-competitive?

The idea is to try to recover these molecules as starting materials from waste so that they're not so expensive. You're a potato chip or french fry manufacturer, and you have to wash all of your vegetables, or even at intermediate stages you're soaking them in water or washing them with water, and then that water waste goes somewhere. But it has valuable stuff in it like starches and proteins from the vegetables. So we'd like to recover those valuable substances from the wastewater.

You're using these different materials that happen to be fertilizers in themselves.

The problem with using carbon for plastic is that even if it is highly recyclable, even if it is compostable, It's still going to turn into carbon dioxide at the end of its life.

"Agricultural fertilizer doesn't have carbon in it—it has nitrogen and phosphorus and potassium and sulfur and things like that. So let's make our plastics out of that stuff, so that we don't have carbon in the air at the end."

We choose elements that plants need so that we avoid the carbon but still maintain compostability or biodegradability. But we can't get rid of the carbon completely—it's more of a carbon minimization than a carbon avoidance or removal in order for it to still behave as a plastic and have that kind of flexibility.

So if we can make a plastic that has not very much carbon, but it has a lot of other stuff that is good for soil, then you can use it as a fertilizer instead of as compost, because agricultural fertilizer doesn't have carbon in it—it has nitrogen and phosphorus and potassium and sulfur and things like that. So let's make our plastics out of that stuff, so that we don't have carbon in the air at the end.

What do you hope to accomplish at the end of the initial 18-month grant?

I hope that we have at least one material that has good properties and that we show fertilizes soil. That's a very ambitious goal to have in 18 months, but we're going to try.

What sorts of products might be possible with this plastic alternative?

We want to make packaging plastics, something that you could cover your steak with at the grocery store or something like Styrofoam. But these are soft and flexible, and because of that they're a little bit harder to make from these low-carbon elements.

So I would predict that it will be harder for us to make those things, but if we can make the kind of flexible, more stretchy ones, then we can look to things like packaging, plastic bags, Ziploc bags, Saran Wrap, stuff like that. But if we can [only make] brittle things, then it's gonna be more like forks and cups and plates.

How might this research come to life in the real world?

Maybe in the future if it worked really well, there could be a reuse or recycling stream where you put it in your mixed-stream recycling and then they sort it and send it to somebody who is going to turn it into fertilizer.

But the other option is that you throw it in your at-home compost and it can degrade there and that would be great, too.

The Emergent Nanotechnology Lab team has begun research to develop new bioplastics made to be used as fertilizer at end-of-life.

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Robots and chemistry isn’t just a fun combo - Bruns says it’s the future

Michael Kwolek — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:34:59 +0000

Robots and chemistry isn’t just a fun combo - Bruns says it’s the future Michael Kwolek Mon, 06/09/2025 - 10:34

Carson Bruns and his team are developing robots that collaborate with humans in lab settings to reduce work burdens and improve safety.

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Radically Interdisciplinary Research on Display at ATLAS Open House

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 20:51:30 +0000

Radically Interdisciplinary Research on Display at ATLAS Open House Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/11/2023 - 14:51

Michael Kwolek

The ATLAS Institute is one of 12 research centers at �鶹ԭ��, each of which is uniquely positioned to cut across the vertical hierarchy of colleges, departments and programs. Institutes are deliberately interdisciplinary, drawing faculty from several departments to embark on unconventional lines of inquiry.

Some of the most valuable research takes place in the overlaps, intersections and margins. “We believe really interesting stuff happens in the spaces between disciplines,” says Mark D Gross, ATLAS Director. The institute aims to find and explore more of these often-overlooked areas as they tend to attract amazing people—those who could easily work in conventional departments, but whose interests are broader and more disparate.

At ATLAS, we have researchers from computer science, mechanical engineering, information science, music and the humanities working in close proximity. Gross explains, “As a community, our backgrounds are quite diverse, and you’ll see that as you visit our labs and meet our faculty and their students. I like to say that we breed and attract technology visionaries and virtuosos: people who have wild ideas and the technical ability to realize those ideas themselves.”

We’ve seen this approach pay dividends. Of our eight research-active faculty members, three have NSF CAREER grants, considered among the most prestigious awards for teacher-scholars.

The ATLAS community has also recently garnered national media attention for a number of projects. Carson Bruns, director of the Laboratory for Emergent Nanotechnology, has been recognized for his work on tattoos that embed new technologies in the skin. Michael Rivera, director of the Utility Research Lab, has been spotlighted for research on transforming spent coffee grounds into a compostable 3D printing medium.

In addition, ATLAS member-authored papers won awards at leading conferences this year including VIS 2023 and CHI 2023.

We make tangible and digital tools and methods that shape how people interact with the world: things you can hold, wear, hear and play with; materials designers can use to realize their own visionary ideas; systems that change the way you interact with computers and the way computers interact with you. This manifests in disparate ways—from complex woven forms to innovative biomaterials to haptics that respond with emotion-driven gestures to music improvisation with sonified brainwaves.

Explore for yourself at the ATLAS Research Open House
Once a year, ATLAS opens its doors so the community can go hands-on with the radically inventive projects we pursue. The ATLAS Research Open House is a chance for lab teams to directly engage with colleagues, potential collaborators and those curious about boundary-breaking research. Stop by to discover what our labs are working on in the spaces between disciplines.

ATLAS Research Open House
Friday, October 20, 2023
3-5 pm
Part of �鶹ԭ��’s Research and Innovation Week
Cost: Free!

Some of the most valuable research takes place in the overlaps, intersections and margins. At ATLAS, we aim to find and explore more of these often-overlooked areas to uncover surprising discoveries.

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How this celebrity tattoo artist created a tattoo you can turn on and off at will

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 19:10:36 +0000

How this celebrity tattoo artist created a tattoo you can turn on and off at will Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/03/2022 - 13:10

Bang Bang—who has inked the likes of Rihanna and LeBron—teamed up with research scientists Carson Bruns and Jesse Butterfield to develop a new kind of light-sensitive ink.

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Ellen Yi-Luen Do and Carson Bruns win graduate school awards for outstanding mentorship

Anonymous — Wed, 04 May 2022 19:10:41 +0000

Ellen Yi-Luen Do and Carson Bruns win graduate school awards for outstanding mentorship Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/04/2022 - 13:10

Praised by their graduate students for their scientific competence, work ethic, creativity and compassion, two ATLAS professors received Outstanding Faculty Mentor awards from �鶹ԭ��’s Graduate school on May 3, an honor bestowed this year on only 18 faculty members campus-wide.

Ellen Yi-Luen Do, professor of computer science and director of the ACME Lab, and Carson Bruns, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab, were both honored for outstanding contributions to mentoring individual graduate students and the quality of their interactions with them.

Their nomination materials showcased their many contributions in mentoring graduate students and supporting the mission of graduate education, while supporting their students’ career development and individual growth.

Carson Bruns
Bruns’ research focuses on emergent nanomaterials—engineering matter at the smallest of scales to create materials with particular properties. His group has received wide recognition for its work on “smart tattoos," which have the potential to impart new properties to skin.

Jesse Butterfield, an ATLAS-affiliated PhD candidate and alumnus of the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab, said that Bruns regularly comes up with “brilliant ideas for impactful scientific work.” One such idea—the use of invisible tattoo inks to protect skin from UV light and the cancers it causes—forms the backbone of Butterfield’s PhD studies.

“He spends more time with his grad students than any other advisor that I’m aware of, and with some of them by orders of magnitude,” Butterfield said. “He gives each of us his full attention.”

Bruns always pushes his students to work on their career goals, even when it slows progress within the lab, Butterfield adds, including when two students wanted to take time out to intern with companies of interest, and when Butterfield wanted to teach an undergraduate class.

Butterfield said Bruns’ kindness has been unwavering since they began working together in 2017. “I give the strongest recommendation possible for awarding Carson, in large part due to his capabilities and strengths in his work, but also for his personal qualities, which allow him to continuously raise up the people around him. He is one of those rare people who constantly makes those around him better.”

Ellen Yi-Luen Do
In Ellen Do’s ACME Lab, students are engaged in a wide range of projects, from alternative game control, to immersive musical jam sessions, to robotics for wellness, to visual analytics, toys to promote child development and generative art.

Despite the breadth of their work, she tells her nine PhD and two master’s students that she is always available: “only an email or door away.”

And on any given day, the ACME Lab is a busy central hub, buzzing and flowing with undergraduate and graduate students, says ATLAS PhD Student Sandra Bae. “Ellen has cultivated a lab culture where her students warmly welcome any student interested in research to join our weekly lab meetings, directly mentor undergraduate or master’s students for their capstone projects or simply invite others to socialize. She understands the importance of a social support system where the lab functions as a family.”

Bae points out that Do is excellent at harnessing and directing the interests of her students. “Her mentoring strength comes from how observant she is,” says Bae.

“As a PhD advisee of Ellen’s, her influence is imprinted on my life,” Bae said. “She is my academic mentor, who listened to my first conference presentation five times in a row; my senior, who taught me how to treat friends and myself with compassion; my spiritual leader, who motivates me with her delightful energy; my personal role model, who helps me, another Asian-American woman, be more confident that I belong and can succeed in academia.”

ATLAS Community Members Receiving 2022 Graduate School Awards

Fiona Bell, ATLAS PhD student, member of the Living Matter Lab; Dissertation Completion Fellowship, (one academic semester of financial support).

Carson Bruns, assistant professor, ATLAS Institute & Mechanical Engineering; Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award.

Ellen Yi-Luen Do, professor, ATLAS Institute & Computer Science; Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award.

Sasha de Koninck, PhD candidate in Intermedia Art, Writing and Performance, member of the Unstable Design Lab; Graduate School Summer Fellowship ($6,000); Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant ($1,000).

Varsha Koushik, PhD'22, Computer Science, member of the Superhuman Computing Lab; First-place, Three-Minute Thesis Competition Winner.

Anthony Pinter, PhD'22, Information Science, ATLAS lecturer and incoming teaching assistant professor; Second-place, Three-Minute Thesis Competition winner.

Purnendu, ATLAS PhD student; Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant ($1,000).

Praised by their graduate students for their scientific competence, work ethic, creativity and compassion, two ATLAS professors received Outstanding Faculty Mentor awards from �鶹ԭ��’s Graduate School on May 3, an honor bestowed this year on only 18 faculty members campus-wide.

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ATLAS PhD candidate Kailey Shara wins top award in NVC 2022

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Apr 2022 23:46:48 +0000

ATLAS PhD candidate Kailey Shara wins top award in NVC 2022 Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/15/2022 - 17:46

First-place New Venture Challenge winner, Chembotix, was awarded $45,000 for its work on speeding up the pace of chemistry research and development. Making molecules in current laboratory settings is typically time-consuming and dangerous; Kailey Shara's automation makes the process faster and safer.

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Augmenting Books With Tangible Animation

Anonymous — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 19:01:10 +0000

Augmenting Books With Tangible Animation Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 01/31/2022 - 12:01

SIGGRAPH sat down with Purnendu, a PhD student in the ATLAS Institute and a researcher at Meta Reality Labs, to talk about his team’s SIGGRAPH 2021 Labs project, “Electriflow: Augmenting Books With Tangible Animation Using Soft Electrohydraulic Actuators.” The team's actuator technology strives to augment animation within physical books.

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High-tech tattoos may help prevent skin cancer

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 19:18:06 +0000

High-tech tattoos may help prevent skin cancer Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/15/2021 - 12:18

Carson Bruns, assistant professor and director of the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab, and his research team are collaborating with the CU Anschutz Medical Campus to test a tattoo ink that’s completely invisible—and could lower the risk of skin cancer, much like a “permanent sunscreen."

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Origami comes to life with new shape-changing materials

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 21:52:25 +0000

Origami comes to life with new shape-changing materials Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/22/2021 - 15:52

Imagine opening up a book of nature photos only to see a kaleidoscope of graceful butterflies flutter out from the page. Such fanciful storybooks might soon be possible thanks to the work of a team of designers and engineers at �鶹ԭ��’s ATLAS Institute.

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ATLAS research spins off to Catalyze CU

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 18:32:34 +0000

ATLAS research spins off to Catalyze CU Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/21/2021 - 12:32

Of the six companies selected to participate in Catalyze CU over the summer, two are teams from the ATLAS Institute.

Catalyze CU is a highly selective, summer-long startup accelerator that combines world-class mentorship, funding and dedicated co-working space. The program helps the most promising ventures from across the �鶹ԭ�� campus reach escape velocity–providing some funding without taking any equity.

CHROMAPRAXIS, a tattoo ink innovation company with research developed in the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab and founded by Assistant Professor Carson Bruns and Jesse Butterfield, a mechanical engineering PhD student, has been accepted. The company has two product lines:

Dermadaptive Ink enables tattoo artists to pioneer a new form of body art as dynamic as the body itself, with color-changing pigments that morph tattoos’ appearance in different lighting.
Invelanin Ink lowers skin aging and skin cancer risk by providing permanent, invisible sun protection. Unlike sunscreen, a one-time, minimally invasive Invelanin procedure provides years of protection without ever making the skin sticky, oily, or shiny.

Also accepted is LoopSketch, a remote, real-time collaborative software platform for "sketching" musical ideas with friends using user-recorded loops, AI-recommended loops and AI-created loops. With research developed by ATLAS PhD Student Darren Sholes in the ACME Lab, LoopSketch focuses on group flow and brainstorming, allowing for a remote experience that feels more like an in-person jam session. It makes it possible for musicians in different locations to collaborate and quickly build rich, multilayered recordings. Sholes pitched LoopSketch to judges during �鶹ԭ��’s New Venture Challenge 14 Prize Night on March 17, winning first place in the newcomer competition (event video here), which came with $5,000 in funding.

Catalyze CU has helped founding teams go from idea to impact, and from prototype to production. Catalyze alumni have a strong track record of being accepted to top tier accelerators like Techstars, raising funding, winning grants and launching successful Kickstarters. participants will be with a cohort of other highly performing teams.

ATLAS Board of Advisors member Kyle Kuczun is one of the coaches for this cohort.

Two teams from the ATLAS Institute were selected to participate in Catalyze CU, a highly selective, summer-long startup accelerator that combines world-class mentorship, funding and dedicated co-working space.

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