RSC Applied Polymers Blog

RSC Applied Polymers has published its first articles. To celebrate this, we asked the authors of our first 50 articles, to discuss their work in some more detail.

In this edition, we hear from Dr Michael Cunningham and Raz Abbasi , about their study entitled ‘Crosslinking CO2-switchable polymers for paints and coatings applications’

Want to know more about their work? Read the full paper here!

Dr Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham is a Professor in Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University with a cross appointment to the Department of Chemistry. He held an Ontario Research Chair in Green Chemistry and Engineering. His research program focusses on the development of novel polymer nanoparticles, sustainably-sourced polymeric materials including hybrids of synthetic polymers and renewable polymers, and CO₂-switchable materials. He is Chair of the International Polymer Colloids Group and recipient of several national research awards including the NSERC Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering, Macromolecular Science and Engineering Award, Canadian Green Chemistry and Engineering Award, and the Syncrude Canada Innovation Award, as well as the Queen’s University Prize for Excellence in Research and the Professional Engineer’s Ontario Research and Development Medal. He is a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and, Canadian Academy of Engineering and Engineering Institute of Canada.

Raz Abbasi

Raz Abbasi is a PhD candidate in the Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University. Raz received her master’s in Polymer Engineering from the Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute (IPPI). Her current research is focused on exploring the application of CO₂-switchable materials and chemistry in the enhancement of paints and coatings.

Crosslinking CO2-switchable polymers for paints and coatings applications
Raz Abbasi, Amy Mitchell, Philip G. Jessop and Michael F. Cunningham

RSC Appl. Polym., 2024,2, 214-223 DOI: 10.1039/D3LP00186E

RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.   Find out more about the journal Read our first articles Submit your manuscript today Sign up for email alerts Follow us on social media

RSC Applied Polymers has published its first articles. To celebrate this, we asked the authors of our first 50 articles, to discuss their work in some more detail.

In this edition, we hear from Dr Calum Ferguson, at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, about their study entitled ‘Comonomer effects in vinyl based photocatalytic polymers’

Want to know more about their work? Read the full paper here!

Dr Calum Ferguson

Calum Ferguson obtained an integrated Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh in 2013. After a short time working in industry at Syngenta, he moved to the University of Leeds and was awarded his PhD in 2018. After completing his doctoral studies, he joined the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Mainz, Germany) initially as a PostDoc in 2018 and then was promoted to group leader in 2020. He returned to the UK in April 2022, whilst retaining his position in Germany, and joined the O’Reilly group at the University of Birmingham as a group leader. In 2022, he was named a Nanoscale Emerging Investigator for his work on photocatalytic polymers, and in 2023, he was selected as an ACS Future Faculty Scholar.

Comonomer effects in vinyl based photocatalytic polymers.

Thomas Kuckhoff, Julian Heuer, Rong Li, Kai A. I. Zhang, Katharina Landfester and Calum T. J. Ferguson.

RSC Appl. Polym., 2024, Advance Article. DOI: 10.1039/D3LP00162H

RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.   Find out more about the journal Read our first articles Submit your manuscript today Sign up for email alerts Follow us on social media

RSC Applied Polymers has published its first articles. To celebrate this, we asked the authors to discuss their work in some more detail.

In this edition, we hear from Rubayn Goh and co-workers about their study entitled Recent advances in thermogels for the management of diabetic ocular complications.

From left to right: Jun Jie Chang, Rubayn Goh, Nicholas Wei Xun Ong, Belynn, Xian Jun Loh and Joey Hui Min Wong

“The prevalence of diabetic ocular complications is expected to increase significantly in the coming years. Minimally invasive injectable hydrogels can serve as ocular drug delivery systems, biocompatible vitreous substitutes, and shape-conformable implants. We hope this review will convince people of the potential thermoresponsive hydrogels (thermogels) can serve to improve therapeutics for ocular diseases.”

“This article highlights the key advantages of thermogels as an attractive system suitable for biomedical applications. Due to their ease of application, minimal invasiveness, in situ gelation at physiological temperatures, high biocompatibility, and tailorable properties, it makes it a suitable drug depot or scaffold for ocular therapeutics.”

“When fabricating thermogels as drug delivery depots, interactions between specific drugs and polymers would have a large impact on the release kinetics – this provides an opportunity for tunable injectable delivery systems. Ongoing work in fine-tuning and balancing opacity and drug interactions in thermogels will greatly benefit ocular drug delivery systems.”

“In light of the potential of thermogels for biomedical applications, we believe further research would help advance more thermogel systems into clinical applications.”

“We hope this review will inspire and provide valuable insights for the research community working on injectable hydrogels, drug delivery systems, and ocular disease treatments.”

Want to know more about their work? Read the full paper here!

Recent advances in thermogels for the management of diabetic ocular complications

Nicholas Wei Xun Ong, Belynn Sim, Jun Jie Chang, Joey Hui Min Wong, Xian Jun Loh and Rubayn Goh

RSC Appl. Polym. 2023, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/D3LP00136A

RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.   Find out more about the journal Read our first articles Submit your manuscript today Sign up for email alerts Follow us on social media

RSC Applied Polymers has published its first articles. To celebrate this, we asked the authors to discuss their work in some more detail.

In this edition, we hear from S. Anandhan about their study entitled A new multifunctional energy harvester based on mica nanosheet-dispersed PVDF nanofabrics featuring piezo-capacitive, piezoelectric and triboelectric effects.

Want to know more about their work? Read the full paper here!

A new multifunctional energy harvester based on mica nanosheet-dispersed PVDF nanofabrics featuring piezo-capacitive, piezoelectric and triboelectric effects

Govind S. Ekbote, Mohammed Khalifa, B. Venkatesa Perumal and S. Anandhan

RSC Appl. Polym. 2023, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/D3LP00080J

RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.   Find out more about the journal Read our first articles Submit your manuscript today Sign up for email alerts Follow us on social media

RSC Applied Polymers has published its first articles. To celebrate this, we asked the authors to discuss their work in some more detail.

In this edition, we hear from Anita Hu about their study entitled Unravelling the influence of side-chain symmetry on device performance: insights from isoindigo-based polymers in thin-film transistors.

Want to know more about their work? Read the full paper here!

Unravelling the influence of side-chain symmetry on device performance: insights from isoindigo-based polymers in thin-film transistors

Anita Hu, Audithya Nyayachavadi, Max Weires, Garima Garg, Shihong Wang and Simon Rondeau-Gagné

RSC Appl. Polym. 2023, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/D3LP00104K

RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.   Find out more about the journal Read our first articles Submit your manuscript today Sign up for email alerts Follow us on social media

RSC Applied Polymers has published its first articles. To celebrate this, we asked the authors to discuss their work in some more detail.

In this edition, we hear from Sara Beikzadeh about their study entitled Porous bioelectronic substrates for simple electrochemical conjugation and subsequent, controlled electrochemical release of antisense oligonucleotide drug.

Want to know more about their work? Read the full paper here!

Porous bioelectronic substrates for simple electrochemical conjugation and subsequent, controlled electrochemical release of antisense oligonucleotide drug

Sara Beikzadeh, Devon T. Bryant, Alireza Akbarinejad, Lisa I. Pilkington, Anthony R.J. Phillips and Jadranka Travas-Sejdic

RSC Appl. Polym. 2023, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/D3LP00047H

RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.   Find out more about the journal Read our first articles Submit your manuscript today Sign up for email alerts Follow us on social media

RSC Applied Polymers has published its first articles. To celebrate this, we asked the authors to discuss their work in some more detail.

In this edition, we hear from David Mecerreyes about their study entitled Poly(ionic liquid)s having coumarate counter-anions as corrosion inhibitors in acrylic UV coatings.

“We present high performance polymeric corrosion inhibitors against stainless steel. The success of these materials is to combine small molecular weight coumarate ions known by its anti-corrosion effect and poly(ionic liquid)s known by their beneficial surface interactions. In our article, we show the synthesis and the electrochemical characterization of the polymeric corrosion inhibitors.”

“One of the issues of small molecular weight corrosion inhibitors is leaching from the coatings and their loss of performance with time. The role of the polymer is to prevent the leaching of the corrosion inhibitor and to improve its adhesion to the surface thus improving the anti-corrosion behavior over time.”

“This article highlights the benefits of poly(ionic liquid)s and coumarate ions as corrosion inhibitors. It shows the potential of polymeric corrosion inhibitors.”

“Our next steps are to improve corrosion inhibition efficiency and to include the polymers in different coating materials such as epoxy coatings, acrylic UV-coatings and polyurethanes. We would like also to apply our polymers to inhibit the corrosion of different metals. We are actually investigating different poly(ionic liquid)s, conducting polymers and bio based ions as polymeric corrosion inhibitors.”

“We hope this publication convince people to the potential of polymers to combat corrosion and contributes to the research activities into this technological relevant area.”

Want to know more about their work? Read the full paper here!

Poly(ionic liquid)s having coumarate counter-anions as corrosion inhibitors in acrylic UV coatings

Daniela Minudri, Anthony Somers, Nerea Casado, Maria Forsyth and David Mecerreyes

RSC Appl. Polym. 2023, 1, 55-63, DOI: 10.1039/D3LP00017F

RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.   Find out more about the journal Read our first articles Submit your manuscript today Sign up for email alerts Follow us on social media

RSC Applied Polymers has published its first articles. To celebrate this, we asked the authors to discuss their work in some more detail.

In this edition, we hear from Obed Dodo and Dominik Konkolewicz about their study entitled Dynamic polymer nanocomposites towards strain sensors and customizable resistors.

Want to know more about their work? Read the full paper here!

Dynamic polymer nanocomposites towards strain sensors and customizable resistors

Obed J. Dodo, Ibrahim O. Raji, Ian J. Arny, Camryn P. Myers, Leilah Petit, Kumari Walpita, Derrick Dunn, Carl J. Thrasher and Dominik Konkolewicz

RSC Appl. Polym. 2023, 1, 30-45, DOI: 10.1039/D3LP00012E

RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.   Find out more about the journal Read our first articles Submit your manuscript today Sign up for email alerts Follow us on social media