Polymer Chemistry Blog

Zi-Hao Guo received his B.Sc. degree in 2008 from Nankai University. In 2013, he earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Jian Pei at Peking University. He worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Texas A&M University in 2014–2016 and Yale University in 2016-2018. From 2018, he started his independent career as Assistant Professor at School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology (SCUT). Currently, his research interests are conjugated semiconducting polymers for organic electronics and solid-state electrolytes for lithium batteries.

Read Zi-Hao’s Emerging Investigator article, An N-oxide containing conjugated semiconducting polymer with enhanced electron mobility via direct (hetero)arylation polymerization, DOI: D3PY00207A.

Check out our interview with Zi-Hao below:

How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is a reputable journal with broad readership cover from synthesis to applications of polymers. Due to special optical and electrical properties of conjugated polymers, they have a wide range of applications in organic electronics with increasing interest from both industry and academia. I am very excited that I can share our group’s recent research results on N-type semiconducting conjugated polymers.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I think the most exciting aspect of this work is that small changes in chemical structure of polymers give us completely different carrier transport properties. This aspect drives me to design and synthesize new conjugated polymers and explore their properties. The most challenging thing in my research is exploring green, non-toxic and environmentally friendly polymerization reactions for the synthesis of conjugated polymers

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

Insulated alkyl chains are usually introduced to conjugated polymers in order to achieve good solubility for solution processing. In my opinion, the most important question to be asked is how to minimize the use of insulating alkyl chains but still get a high-performance material that can be dissolved and processed.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

When you start your own research as a principle investigator, be sure to carefully consider where you are going for the next 5 to 10 years. Once you’ve made a deliberate decision, believe in yourself and keep doing it, you’ll succeed.

Keep up with all of Zi-Hao’s research on the Guo lab website.

Takuya Isono is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering at Hokkaido University in Japan. He earned his Ph.D. degree in polymer chemistry from the Graduate School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at Hokkaido University in 2014. During his Ph.D. studies from 2012 to 2014, he was a JSPS research fellow (DC1). After completing his Ph.D., he began his research career as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Engineering at Hokkaido University in 2014. Since April 2021, he has held his current position at Hokkaido University. His expertise is in precise polymer synthesis, and his research interests are currently centred on organocatalytic polymerization, bio-based polymers, block copolymers, and topological polymers. He has received scientific awards for his research, including the Inoue Research Award for Young Scientists from the Inoue Foundation for Science in 2016, the Polymer Research Encouraging Award from the Society of Polymer Science, Japan in 2020, and the Research Encourage Award from the Chemical Society of Japan in 2021.

Read Takuya’s Emerging Investigator Paper, Installation of the adamantyl group in polystyrene-block-poly(methyl mathacrylate) via Friedel–Crafts alkylation to modulate the microphase-separated morphology and dimensions, DOI: D3PY00113J.

Check out our interview with Takuya below:

How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Our group is working on a diverse range of research, such as the search for novel polymerization catalysts, development of new living polymerization systems, investigation of the structure and physical properties of architecturally complex polymers, and creation of functional polymer materials. In my opinion, Polymer Chemistry is an invaluable publication media that offer an excellent platform for sharing such a broad range of polymer science research findings with the interdisciplinary research community.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

My research interests in polymer science involve synthesizing functional polymer materials, investigating their physical and functional properties, and using these insights to design further refined materials. Within those research topics, the synthesis of materials itself is challenging, and the subsequent study of their properties and functions is even more so. As my expertise lies in polymer synthesis, I feel a great sense of achievement when a synthesis goes smoothly as expected. I am thrilled when I observe beautiful structures or patterns under a microscope or through scattering measurements. I am also excited to discuss interesting experimental results or the potential for new research themes with colleagues and students.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

I believe that proposing a range of innovative ideas to facilitate the sustainable use of polymer materials will be a crucial challenge in the field of polymer chemistry for the next decade.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

Having good mentors and collaborators is extremely important not only for successfully completing your research projects, but also for advancing your career. Without their guidance and support, I would not have been able to continue pursuing my research and academic career.

James M. Eagan is an assistant professor at the University of Akron School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering. His research focuses on improving the performance of recycled polymer blends and in the development of new polymers derived from sustainable feedstocks, such as olefins and carbon dioxide. In the community, he and his group promote sustainable polymer solutions through the Akron Polymer Industry Cluster, and sponsor research experiences for young scientists through the ACS Seed program, and Ohio Department of Education. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2014 under the guidance of Scott A. Snyder and completed postdoctoral studies at Cornell University under Geoffrey W. Coates. He is the recipient of the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, NSF Faculty Early Career Development award, and the ACS Petroleum Research Foundation (PRF) New Investigator Grant.

Read James’s Emerging Investigator Paper, Ethylene polymerization using heterogeneous multinuclear nickel catalysts supported by a crosslinked alpha diimine ligand network, DOI: D3PY00118K.

Check out our interview with James below:

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

We investigate new polymerization catalysts and methods, and the most exciting aspect in this area is the discovery of new materials from old feedstocks.  It is incredible that after more than a century of research into simple monomers like ethylene, propene, and butadiene, novel macromolecules and material properties can still be discovered.  The most challenging part of our research is connecting the performance of new polymers to sustainable applications and ensuring that renewable alternatives meet, or surpass, existing material properties.

Find out more about James’s research on the Eagan Lab Group Page.

Ignazio Roppolo is actually assistant professor in Experimental Physics of Matter at Department of Applied Science and Technology- Politecnico di Torino (Turin, Italy). Since his bachelor degree (in 2006), he was involved in photopolymerization field and in photoactivated chemistry. After achieving his PhD in Materials Science and Technology (2012), he moved to Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) as a post-doc researcher, where he started to work on the development of photocurable organic electronics. In 2015, still in IIT, he moved his interests towards new photocurable materials for 3D printing. In 2017 he moved to Politecnico di Torino, establishing a laboratory dedicated to 3D printing, specifically focused on light activated technologies, which goals spans over different application fields: from biomedical to energy, from sensors to microreactors. The underlying idea carried out in his laboratory is to control chemical and physical properties of the materials and to play with design properties, to achieve synergistic effects in functional devices, thanks to 3D printing. He is also research fellow at University of Warwick (Coventry, UK) and Italian Institute of Technology (IIT).

Read Ignazio’s Emerging Investigator article, “Colorimetric 3D printable base-detectors exploiting halocromic core-substituted naphthalenediimides“, DOI 10.1039/D2PY01593E.

Check out our interview with Ignazio interview below:

How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is an amazing forum for the publication of advancements in polymer science, since it merges a rigorous approach to the field with the interest towards cutting-edges applications and innovations. In this case, I’m delighted to have the chance to show novel uses for 3D printable polymers.

What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

Light-induced 3D printing is really exploding now. When I started to work on this topic (2015), there were few groups that were trying to add material and chemical knowledges in 3D printing, while now there are hundreds of papers every year. Nonetheless, there are still many rooms for research, aiming at fulfilling the premises that 3D printing is promising. This is contemporarily the most exciting and the most challenging aspect of the investigations: on the one hand there are the endless new findings that can be discovered, on the other hand the necessity to translate those in something that can be applied in everyday life, beyond scientific curiosity.

In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

I believe that the most important question that has to be done when approaching this type of 3D printing technologies is “ How can I integrate design and materials’ properties? What should I do to achieve some synergistic effect?”. In my opinion, in forefront research in this topic, devices’ architecture and characteristics should be designed together. Conversely, we will keep on missing the real potentialities of 3D printing.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I see in my young collaborators and students a lot of stress, which is related to the pressure that they feel, especially for what regards “scientific metrics” (impact factors, number of publications, citations,…). I believe that the only stress that, as scientists, we should feel, especially in the early-stages of a career, is to produce “good science”, rigorous but at the same time with creativity. When good science is achieved, benefits will arrive: for the self-esteem, for the career, for the scientific community and finally for the society.

Junliang Zhang received his B.S. in Pharmaceutical Engineering (2009) and M.S. in Applied Chemistry (2012) from Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, China. He obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 2017 at the University of Warwick, UK, under the supervision of Prof. Sébastien Perrier, working on the synthesis of multiblock copolymers with intricate nanostructures through reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. He then moved to Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Ulrich S. Schubert’s group, to investigate the self-assembly of gradient and multi-block copolymers. In October 2018, he joined the School of Chemistry of and Chemical Engineering at Northwestern Polytechnical University. His current research interests mainly focus on the design and synthesis of liquid crystalline (multi)block copolymers and their applications in elastomeric, thermally conductive, and wave-transparent materials.

Read Junliang’s Emerging Investigator article, ‘Enhancing intrinsic thermal conductivities of epoxy resins by introducing biphenyl mesogen-containing liquid crystalline co-curing agents’ DOI: 10.1039/D2PY01157C

Check out our interview with Junliang below

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is one of the leading journals in design, synthesis, and application of polymeric materials. The submission and reviewing experience has always been very pleasant. By submitting our manuscripts in Polymer Chemistry, we can always expect a professional and timely processing. I am very excited to publish our work on thermally conductive polymeric materials in Polymer Chemistry.

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

What I am most excited about at the moment is we can make polymers with precisely controlled molecular structures, the properties and functionalities of which can be tuned on demand. The biggest challenge is how to make our designed polymeric materials through a straight-forward procedure and at a low cost for practical applications.

Hossein Roghani-Mamaqani received his BSc and MSc degrees in polymer engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT). He was awarded the outstanding MSc researcher prize by AUT in 2009. He completed his PhD course in 2013 at AUT and has been honored as a highly intelligent student in his MSc and PhD courses by AUT talented student association. He was selected as recognized PhD student by National Elite Foundation in 2011-2013 and also Iran’s recognized PhD student by ministry of science in 2013. He worked in Petrochemical Research and Technology Company as a researcher from 2007 to 2009. He also worked as a researcher in Research Institute of Petroleum Industry from 2009 to 2013. He joined Sahand University of Technology (SUT) as an assistant professor in 2013. He was nominated as the recognized young assistant professor by National Elite Foundation in 2013. He was selected as the recognized researcher at Polymer Engineering Department of SUT in 2015, 2018, and 2021 and also as the recognized researcher at SUT in 2019-2021. He was selected as the recognized researcher at East Azarbaijan province in 2020 and recognized Elite Scientist by Iran Science Elites Federation in 2021. He was also selected as the outstanding young researcher in chemical engineering by Iran Academy of Sciences in 2022. Currently, he is a professor of polymer engineering at SUT. His research interest is in the area of polymer chemistry, controlled radical polymerization, surface modification reactions, polymer colloids, hydrogels, optical sensors, and also smart polymers.

Read Hossein’s Emerging Investigator review article,‘Water treatment using stimuli-responsive polymers’

Check out our interview with Hossein below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is one of the leading journals in the field of polymer design, synthesis, and applications. Professional editorial board, timely reviewing and publication, interesting scope with emphasis on the new polymerization methods, and publication of high-quality articles make this journal totally fitted to my interests. By taking my research field into consideration, Polymer Chemistry is a right place to publish new results in the synthesis and applications of colloidal polymers, living polymers with well-defined structures, and smart polymers.

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

The structure and property relationship in polymers can be manipulated by the polymerization methods. My group is able to synthesize well-defined polymer structures, surface-grafted polymers, and colloidal polymers with tailored characteristics. For instance, in the design and synthesis of smart photo-responsive polymers, polymer structure can affect optical properties of the final products, which has applications in anticounterfeiting systems, sensors, smart coatings, smart membranes, etc. Photochromic and fluorescent polymers with the ability of color changing and light emission in response to different stimuli are among the most exciting smart polymers.

3. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

How can we inspire from nature to design polymers with smart characteristics? For example, chameleons display a wide range of body color in response to variations of the environmental conditions. It has been a significant challenge to design and fabricate such systems, with the ability of reversible and fast color change. The other example is self-cleaning ability of the plant leaves, flowers, butterfly, etc. which is used in the preparation of self-cleaning coatings. It has been a significant challenge to design such systems, with the ability of complete cleaning of different impurities.

How can we use the smart characteristics of polymers in our daily life? Smart polymers can be used in lots of innovative applications, which are shape-memory, self-reporting, self-cleaning, and self-healing polymers, smart coatings, smart windows, spoilage indicators of food materials, anticounterfeiting systems, sensors and indicators, etc. which have been investigated in our recent studies.

Read Julieta’s Open Access Emerging Investigator article, ‘Redox-triggerable firefly luciferin-bioinspired hydrogels as injectable and cell-encapsulating matrices’

Check out our interview with Julieta below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is a top reputed journal in the field, and represents a paramount home for discussion of the state-of-the-art. I feel delighted to contribute whenever is possible!

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I am thrilled about the transversal nature of my research. My work combines tools from synthetic organic and polymer chemistry, biomaterials science, and cell biology; to engineer smart soft materials that interacts with living cells and tissues. One research line in my lab is the development of responsive hydrogels for cell encapsulation. These artificial models can be used to study the complex communication between cells and between cells and their native microenvironment. The biggest challenge is that the native cell niche is very dynamic, therefore, capturing such features in a synthetic material is complex but fascinating at the same time.

3. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

We want to better understand how cells communicate with themselves and with their environment, so we can develop novel approaches in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In this regard, engineered materials whose properties can be regulated on demand can help us to investigate those type of questions. I am particularly interested in the possibility of controlling matrix viscoelasticity on demand to steer cell behavior. Thereby, I believe that the polymer chemistry field has much to offer by providing inspiration towards novel mechanoresponsive polymeric tools upon which smart biomaterials can be built.

4. Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I would encourage young researchers to get involved into (and, eventually, to create their own) diverse scientific teams. I have enjoyed very much my journey so far, since it allowed me to be surrounded and get inspired by researchers from diverse disciplines, career stage, geographical background and way of thinking. This multidisciplinary and multicultural ingredient of a scientific team, which has greatly impacted my career, is in my view what makes science very creative, rewarding and fun.

Quentin Michaudel grew up in La Rochelle, France. He received his B.Sc. (2008) and M.Sc. (2010) from the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. He earned his Ph.D. (2015) with Professor Phil S. Baran at The Scripps Research Institute, where he explored C–H functionalization methods and their applications to the synthesis of complex molecules. Quentin then accepted a postdoctoral position at Cornell University, where he developed photocontrolled polymerizations with Professor Brett P. Fors. In 2018, Quentin started his independent career as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University. His research group focuses on the development of synthetic methods and new organic materials. Quentin is the recipient of the 2022 ACS PMSE Young Investigator Award; the 2022 ACS Organic Division Academic Young Investigator’s Symposium; and the 2021 Thieme Chemistry Journals Award. You can follow Quentin and his lab on Twitter @q_michaudel and @MichaudelLab

Read Quentin’s Emerging Investigator article, ‘Expedient synthesis and ring-opening metathesis polymerization of pyridinonorbornenes’

Check out our interview with Quentin below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is a great venue for synthetic studies focused on new polymeric architectures, as well as for reports of polymerizations relying on catalytic processes. It is a great place for the polymer community to share impactful results.

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I am very excited about my group’s ability to precisely synthesize polymers with high structural complexity and tailored properties. Our research requires the often-difficult characterization of novel polymers, as well as the investigation of intricate reaction mechanisms, but that challenge is exciting and motivates us to push the boundaries of the field.

Read Zachary’s Emerging Investigator article, ‘Donor modification of thermally activated delayed fluorescence photosensitizers for organocatalyzed atom transfer radical polymerization’

Check out our interview with Zachary below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is the perfect place to read about innovative techniques in polymer synthesis, and we’re excited to contribute an article with a photophysical twist.

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I’m very excited about our work on luminescent polymer dots, or Pdots – nanoparticles that can be bright enough to be detected with a handheld smartphone camera. We’re collaborating with my colleague Russ Algar at UBC to develop nanoparticles for biosensing using smartphones, and translating this to technology that could be used in a healthcare setting represents a major exciting challenge.

3. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

Our current featured article uses organic photosensitizers as catalysts for controlled radical polymerization. In this space, we need to develop highly photostable sensitizers that can perform using visible light irradiation. This is a major challenge, because accessing suitably high-energy excited states using visible light is itself a contradictory requirement.

4. Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I’m a big fan of ‘white space’ in my calendar – time in which nothing is booked, so I have the space to just read or think. The hectic lifestyle of early-career academia combined with our always-connected culture makes it hard to find time to just think about science – schedule it if you have to!