Polymer Chemistry Blog

This week’s issue of Polymer Chemistry is our 2020 Emerging Investigators issue, which contains articles from polymer chemistry researchers in the early stages of their independent careers and is accompanied by an Editorial from Editor-in-Chief Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik. To celebrate this issue we are delighted to feature the profile of Professor Rongrong Hu, who published in our 2018 Emerging Investigators issue. Below, Rongrong talks about her research journey, from student to Professor, and her feelings towards Polymer Chemistry!

“With my organic synthesis training as an undergraduate student at Peking University where I learned the great diversity of organic reactions, and the research experiences on luminescent polymer materials during my PhD study at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology where I learned the fascinating functionalities that polymers could achieve, I tried to combine organic synthesis and polymer synthesis in my research after I started my career in 2014. We utilize efficient organic reactions for the development of new polymerization methodology and the exploration of new polymer structures and materials. After 5 years of research, I am fully convinced by the huge opportunity that comes with this interdisciplinary study.

Polymer Chemistry, with its topics highly focused on the synthesis, functionalities, and applications of polymers, always provides timely publication and best publishing experiences on exciting progress in the field. It can also sensitively catch new research trend and young polymer chemists. In the 2018 Emerging Investigator issue, we introduced our work about room temperature alkyne and sulfonyl azide-based multicomponent polymerizations, which represent efficient approaches for the convenient construction of polymers with unique structures and functionalities. Encouraged by the broad response of this paper, we further developed several elemental sulfur-based multicomponent polymerizations with practical implication. Most recently, I joined Polymer Chemistry as an Associate Editor, working with the top polymer chemists in the world, to look for most up-to-date innovative and exciting polymer chemistry.”

Read Rongrong’s 2018 Emerging Investigators series paper below!

Room temperature multicomponent polymerizations of alkynes, sulfonyl azides, and N-protected isatins toward oxindole-containing poly(N-acylsulfonamide)s
Liguo Xu,   Fan Zhou,   Min Liao,   Rongrong Hu*  and  Ben Zhong Tang*
Polym. Chem., 2018,9, 1674-1683

FREE to read and download until the 1^st March 2020.

Biography

Rongrong Hu received her B.S. degree from Peking University and her PhD degree from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She is currently a Professor of the State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices at South China University of Technology.

She has published over 110 peer-reviewed articles and reviews. Her research interests include (1) the development of alkyne or isocyanide-based multicomponent polymerization methodology through the combination of organic and polymer synthesis, and (2) luminescent polymers with diverse structures and applications. Her current research focuses on the development of multicomponent polymerizations of elemental sulfur and sulfur-containing functional polymers.

This week’s issue of Polymer Chemistry is our 2020 Emerging Investigators issue, which contains articles from polymer chemistry researchers in the early stages of their independent careers and is accompanied by an Editorial from Editor-in-Chief Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik. To celebrate this issue we are delighted to feature the profile of Dr Antoine Buchard, who published in our 2018 Emerging Investigators issue. Below, Antoine talks about his research journey and his feelings towards Polymer Chemistry!

Dr Antoine Buchard & Dr Ulrich Hintermair from The Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies were photogrpahed at a coffee meeting in The Edge for the University of Bath Alumni Relations Impact Report 2018. Shoot ref: 29456 Client: Rachel Skerry – Alumni Relations. Shoot Dates 8th and 9th November 2017

“I started my research career as a student working on new metal complexes for homogeneous catalysis, and only really ventured into polymer chemistry when some of our complexes showed interesting activities in the ring-opening polymerisation of lactide. Since then, I have been really interested in polymer chemistry because it is an incredibly diverse area, which I think offers a lot of creative space for both fundamental and applied work.

Today, using renewable feedstocks to make novel polymers is the underlying theme of my research program. I am particularly interested in using natural sugars as a sustainable, highly diverse and functionalisable resource to build polymers with interesting properties, including potentially less impact on the environment.  Our work addresses all aspects of the development of new polymers, from the synthesis of novel monomers, the design of new polymerisation catalysts and processes (including heterogeneous (ref Polym. Chem., 2019,10, 5894-5904)), detailed mechanistic and structure-properties studies, up to the applications of the polymers themselves. Polymer Chemistry is an ideal publication platform for this research, because of the broad scope of the journal, the diversity and expertise of the editorial team, as well as the breadth of article types possible.

Our group have for example recently discovered a method that replaces phosgene with carbon dioxide for the synthesis of cyclic carbonate monomers. We have successfully applied this protocol to various sugar derivatives, including deoxyribose (ref Polym. Chem., 2018,9, 1577-1582) and thymidine (ref Polym. Chem., 2017,8, 1714-1721) and developed promising tuneable, biocompatible and biodegradable polymers, which were also tested as tissue engineering scaffolds for regenerative medicine.

We took the opportunity of the 2018 Emerging Investigator issue to explore slightly different chemistry than usual and investigate the effect of changing some oxygen atoms with sulfur in the backbones of some of our sugar-based polycarbonate (ref Polym. Chem., 2018,9, 1577-1582). To this day it is still unclear! But along the way, we developed some new methodology for use of CS2 in the cyclothio-carbonation of the trans 1,3-diol motif of ribofuranoses, and isolated the first examples of cyclic xanthate monomers derived from natural sugars. Using controlled ring-opening polymerisation, regular poly(xanthate) and alternating poly(trithio-alt-thiocarbonate) species were obtained, and we showed that the sugar backbone influenced greatly the regioselectivity of monomer opening. These polymers formed a new family of degradable sulfur-containing sustainable polymers that attracted some attention from material scientists, and that we are still investigating today and hoping to report on further soon. Featuring in the 2018 Emerging Investigator issue was a great recognition and reward for the work done in my group over the past few years, and has spurred us to keep working in this area.

I am really looking forward to the 2020 Emerging Investigator issue of Polymer Chemistry. I am always curious to discover newcomers in the field and how they envisage the field. With the biennial Pioneering Investigators issue, these issues really set themselves apart from regular issues. I have found that authors usually want to rise to the challenge and report especially exciting results, so it is often a great read!”

Read Antoine’s Polymer Chemistry papers below!

Polymer-supported metal catalysts for the heterogeneous polymerisation of lactones
Ioli C. Howard, Ceri Hammond and Antoine Buchard
Polym. Chem., 2019,10, 5894-5904

Polymers from sugars and CS₂: synthesis and ring-opening polymerisation of sulfur-containing monomers derived from 2-deoxy-D-ribose and D-xylose
Eva M. López-Vidal, Georgina L. Gregory, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn and Antoine Buchard
Polym. Chem., 2018,9, 1577-1582 (Emerging Investigator 2018 Issue)

CO₂-Driven stereochemical inversion of sugars to create thymidine-based polycarbonates by ring-opening polymerisation
Georgina L. Gregory, Elizabeth M. Hierons, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn, Ram I. Sharma and Antoine Buchard
Polym. Chem., 2017,8, 1714-1721

Polymers from sugars and CO₂: ring-opening polymerisation and copolymerisation of cyclic carbonates derived from 2-deoxy-D-ribose
Georgina L. Gregory, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn and Antoine Buchard
Polym. Chem., 2017,8, 2093-2104

Biography

Antoine is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Reader in Chemistry within the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies (CSCT) at the University of Bath (UK). His research interests include novel chemical transformations and use in catalysis of renewable resources for the synthesis of sustainable polymers and their applications. He is also a member of the UK Catalysis Hub.

Antoine studied at the École Polytechnique in France, obtaining the École Polytechnique’s Diploma and a Master’s degree in chemistry in 2006. He also completed his PhD at the Ecole Polytechnique in 2009, under the supervision of Prof Pascal Le Floch. Antoine was then a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at Imperial College with Prof Charlotte Williams. He worked Air Liquide R&D before returning to academia in 2013, as a Whorrod Research Fellow within the CSCT at the University of Bath.