Case Study: MIT achieves safer, sustainable PVC reformulation with Citrine Informatics

MIT quantifies PVC trade-offs with Citrine Informatics

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) faced the challenge of reformulating PVC plastics to remove toxic phthalate plasticizers, which are increasingly banned, while simultaneously retaining the material's essential mechanical performance. They partnered with Citrine Informatics to address this complex problem.

Citrine Informatics built machine learning models to predict the mechanical performance and toxicity of various PVC formulations. By optimizing these formulations with and without toxicity constraints, Citrine provided MIT with a quantitative trade-off analysis. This solution allows engineers to determine the cost of satisfying new regulations and to design high-performance, non-toxic plastics.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)