Emerging technologies can create new opportunities for sustainability, but their environmental, economic, and societal implications are often uncertain during early-stage research and development. Our group evaluates emerging technologies before large-scale deployment to identify potential benefits, tradeoffs, and design priorities while there is still flexibility to shape technology pathways. Our research in this area connects environmental assessment with engineering design, materials innovation, carbon management, and decision support. The goal is to help guide emerging technologies toward pathways that are scalable, responsible, and aligned with long-term sustainability goals.
Featured Projects
Future Eco Manufacturing of Recyclable Soft Electronics
This multi-institutional project develops sustainable and recyclable soft electronics, with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation. Our group contributes eco-design and sustainability assessment approaches to evaluate material choices, manufacturing pathways, and scale-up strategies for emerging soft electronic systems. Project Summary can be found here.
Cost and Environmental Impacts of Waste Valorization Pathways for Decarbonizing U.S. Municipal Solid Waste Systems
Municipal solid waste systems are important for GHG mitigation, resource recovery, and circular economy transitions. This project develops forward-looking, policy-relevant, and market-informed systems analysis models to evaluate waste valorization pathways for U.S. municipal solid waste management. Project summary can be found here.
Research Themes
Sustainable materials
New materials can support circularity, resource efficiency, and pollution reduction, but their sustainability depends on feedstocks, production systems, use patterns, and end-of-life management. Our research evaluates new materials across their life cycles to understand where they can provide environmental benefits and where unintended tradeoffs may arise. This area includes biodegradable plastics, lignocellulosic films, and other emerging materials designed for more sustainable production, use, and end-of-life pathways.
Eco-Design and anticipatory assessment for advanced materials, devices, and manufacturing
Sustainability assessment can be especially valuable during early-stage technology development, when material selection, synthesis routes, processing conditions, performance targets, and scale-up strategies are still evolving. Our group develops eco-design and anticipatory approaches for emerging materials, devices, and manufacturing systems to identify environmental and cost drivers before technologies are locked into commercial pathways. Applications include recyclable soft electronics, nanomaterials, additive manufacturing, and other emerging manufacturing technologies.
Yao, Y. and Huang, R. (2019). A parametric life cycle modeling framework for identifying research development priorities of emerging technologies: A case study of additive manufacturing. Procedia CIRP, 80, 370–375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2019.01.037
Carbon Management and Waste Valorization
Emerging carbon-management and circular economy strategies require careful assessment of their broader sustainability implications. Our research evaluates carbon and waste-management systems across supply chains, deployment contexts, co-benefits, uncertainty, and monitoring, reporting, and verification needs. We focus on land-based carbon dioxide removal pathways, such as enhanced rock weathering, as well as waste valorization across diverse waste streams. Our research connects technology performance with real-world implementation conditions to support more robust and responsible deployment.
Selected Related Publications
Piao, Z. and Yao, Y. (2026). The role of biodegradable plastics in the global plastic future. Nature Reviews Clean Technology, 2(3), 215–230. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44359-025-00142-1
Piao, Z., Agyei Boakye, A.A., and Yao, Y. (2024). Environmental impacts of biodegradable microplastics. Nature Chemical Engineering, 1(10), 661–669. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44286-024-00127-0
Du, H., Liu, K.T., Xu, T., Xu, C., Lin, M., Fang, Z., Kim, S., Seo, J.-Y., Chen, J., Ma, H., Hsiao, B.S., DeVetter, L.W., Piao, Z., Si, C., Chen, C., Yang, Q., Lee, S.-Y., Yao, Y., and Pan, X. (2025). Lignocellulosic films: Preparation, properties, and applications. Chemical Reviews, 125(24), 11666–11814. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.5c00267
Piao, Z., Meza, L., Shukla, D., Venditti, R.A., Zhu, Y., and Yao, Y. (2025). Eco-design for the sustainable scale-up of flexible transparent conductive electrodes at the early-stage development. Green Chemistry, 27(48), 15670–15683. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5gc03167b
Lan, K., Wang, H.S.-H., Lee, T., de Assis, C.A., Venditti, R.A., Zhu, Y., and Yao, Y. (2024). A modeling framework to identify environmentally greener and lower-cost pathways of nanomaterials. Green Chemistry, 26(6), 3466–3478. https://doi.org/10.1039/d3gc04036d
Kroeger, J., Zhang, B., Planavsky, N., and Yao, Y. (2026). Analyzing co-benefits and rock sourcing in life cycle and techno-economic assessment of enhanced rock weathering. Environmental Science & Technology, 60(8), 6215–6226. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c14334
Yao, Y. and Zhang, B. (2025). Life cycle assessment in the monitoring, reporting, and verification of land-based carbon dioxide removal: Gaps and opportunities. Environmental Science & Technology, 59(24), 11950–11963. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.4c09510
Zhang, B., Kroeger, J., Planavsky, N., and Yao, Y. (2023). Techno-economic and life cycle assessment of enhanced rock weathering: A case study from the Midwestern United States. Environmental Science & Technology, 57(37), 13828–13837. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c01658