Caltech Postdocs Launch – March 29, 2024

Lunch will be served at 11:45 AM

Dr. Tridip Das

Upcycling Plastic Wastes - Recycling is not Enough

Plastics pervade all primary categories of municipal solid waste, exceeding 20 million tons in 2023, A third of these single-use plastics comprise high-density polyethylene (PE) and low-density PE and polypropylene (PP). In this research, we have expanded our understanding of the chemistry and reaction processes involved when nonthermal plasmas are applied to PP and PE. We have formulated the ReaxFF reactive force field to facilitate reactive molecular dynamics (RMD) simulations for Ozone, produced by the nonthermal plasma, interacting with PP/PE surfaces. Our computational study on reaction mechanism and value-added products can support the circular economy of single use plastics.

Dr. Cong Cao

How to Better Predict the Effect of Urban Traffic and Weather on Air Pollution? Norwegian Evidence from Machine Learning Approaches

To explore the association between traffic volume, air pollution, and meteorological conditions, I use Machine Learning with a key focus on the interaction between these factors. I considered the 2019 hourly data to verify the prediction accuracy of the models. I find that the autoregressive integrated moving average model with exogenous input variables, and the autoregressive moving average dynamic linear model outperform the support vector machine and decision tree in predicting air pollution. Additionally, I investigated how dividing the seasons and weather subsets influences prediction accuracy. Lastly, I provide optimal policy suggestions for mitigating air pollution stemming from traffic volume.