Polymer Chemistry Blog

Dr. Jason Xu is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow at School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney. He is currently leading a research group in the Cluster for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD) and Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (ACN), with the focus on green and precision polymer synthesis using state-of-the-art polymerization techniques and organic chemistry tools. Dr. Xu received his BS and PhD Degrees (2007) in Polymer Chemistry from Fudan University. Following post-doctoral research in UNSW and University of Melbourne and industrial experience, he joined UNSW to develop visible light-induced living polymerization and precision polymer synthesis. He has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals, attracting over 6300 citations and an h-index of 45. His areas of research interests are green chemistry and sustainable polymer synthesis, precision polymer synthesis mimicking natural perfection, advanced polymer hydrogels for strain and bio-sensors.

What was your inspiration in becoming a polymer chemist?

When I was still a freshman in the university, polymer chemistry was still a young and rising area at the end of 20^th century in China, full of mysteries and possibilities. I was inspired by a lecture delivered by a professor in our school who is one of the pioneering researchers in polymer chemistry. He presented the amazing properties of liquid crystal polymers and foreseeable future of these materials. After that, I started to learn more about polymers and I knew polymers have already been everywhere in our life, plastics and rubbers and synthetic resins. However, there are still many things unknown for polymers, particularly for polymer chemistry. How to design and synthesize these gigantic molecules with the properties we want? This is the question, from then on, always in my mind.

What was the motivation behind your most recent Polymer Chemistry article in the Pioneering Investigators collection?
Natural biopolymers (DNA and peptides) have uniform microstructures with defined molecular weight and precise monomer sequence along the polymer chain that affords them unique biological functions. To reproduce such structurally perfect polymers through chemical approaches, researchers have proposed using synthetic polymers as an alternative. Different methodologies have been developed in the last decades. We recently proposed an emerging technology of single unit monomer insertion (SUMI), which is very similar to peptide synthesis from amino acids. SUMI can precisely prepare uniform and monodisperse alternating polymers using sequential addition of two monomers. However, the characterization of precision structure is getting harder and harder while the polymer chain increases. We therefore propose a series of short oligomers with three monomer units (trimers) to model the reaction for each step. These model trimers can provide the detailed reaction kinetics and mechanism as well as product yields, which will be the same as the reactions in long chain polymer synthesis due to the repeating monomer additions. These model trimers can also provide the reaction kinetics for copolymerization of corresponding monomers.

Which polymer scientist are you most inspired by?
There are many excellent polymer scientists I was most inspired by, such as Professors Craig Hawker and Masami Kamigaito in my mind as examples. Craig is full of very useful and bright ideas covering broad polymer area in chemistry and materials. Our recent photopolymerization technology of PET-RAFT is inspired by his pioneering work in 2012. Masami is at the forefront of polymer synthesis. His work in green polymer synthesis using renewable monomers from natural plants is fascinating.

Can you name some up and coming researchers who you think will have a big impact on the field of polymer chemistry?

This is an interesting but difficult-to-answer question. From my point of view in the specific field of polymer synthesis, there are many young and smart researchers whose research is believed to have a big impact, such as Professors Brett Fors (Cornell) and Athina Anastasaki (ETH) as examples. Their recent excellent works in photocontrolled cationic polymerization and precise polymer dispersity control are good evidence to demonstrate their potential to impact the field. Their contribution will push forward the field of polymer synthesis.

How do you spend your spare time?
I spend my spare time with my family to go out for BBQ and hiking. My daughter is currently two years old, which requires a lot of accompanying and brings so much fun to my life. Also, I like very much playing badminton and have been playing for more than 15 years. It is one of my favorite sports because it is free of any body contact different from basketball or soccer, but still requires the strength, balance and motion skills. It is therefore one of the sports anyone can keep for their whole life.

What profession would you choose if you weren’t a scientist?

I would choose my profession to be an automotive mechanic. Auto mechanic is a “precision” job like a doctor. It requires to know how all different auto parts been designed and how they work synergistically, which enables to quickly diagnose and fix the mechanical malfunction. As a mechanic, the body and mind will work all the time, which can keep the mind sharp and the body active and healthy. Actually, I hold a TAFE Auto mechanic certificate and always had a plan to run a workshop. What I need now is the financial support from some potential investors (kidding!).

Read Jason’s full article now for FREE until 17 November!

Also check our the work of our other Pioneering Investigators here

Trang N. T. Phan is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Radical Chemistry at Aix-Marseille University in France. She completed her undergraduate studies with a Masters in chemistry and then joined the PhD program in Polymers and Organic Chemistry at University of Lille 1. She received her PhD in 2000 under the supervision of Pr. M. Morcellet. During her PhD at the Macromolecular Chemistry Lab, she worked on the synthesis, characterization and water purification application of sorbents based on silica gel functionalized with β-cyclodextrin based polymers. During 2000-2002, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Materials and Interfaces Chemistry Lab of University of Franche-Comté, first in the European project SILACOR and then in a project with BASF on the adsorption of polyelectrolytes on zinc oxide nanoparticles. In 2002, she joined Pr Denis Bertin’s group, firstly as a temporary lecturer and then as a postdoctoral researcher. In September 2004, she became a full associate professor at Aix-Marseille University in the group of Didier Gigmes. In 2014, she received with her colleagues (R. Bouchet and D. Gigmes) the International Prize EDF PULSE Science and Electricity. Her current research interests are in the design and the synthesis of advanced functional polymers via controlled polymerization techniques for specific applications such as solid polymer electrolytes, polymers blend compatibilizers and structure-directing agents.

What was your inspiration in becoming a polymer chemist?

During my Bachelors course work and internship project, I started learning about polymer chemistry. I was fascinated by the “magic” of the transformation of small molecules (monomers) to polymers which are useful functional materials. From that moment, I decided to learn more about how chemistry can help to design and synthesize (co)polymers with precise structure, functionality and composition responding to desired properties and specific applications.

What was the motivation behind your most recent Polymer Chemistry article?

Radical ring-opening polymerization (rROP) of cyclic monomers is an attractive method to synthesize functional polymers bearing both heteroatoms in the backbone and functional groups in the side chain. In addition, the potential applicability of rROPs for copolymerizations with vinyl monomers is a highly attractive feature. Among different cyclic monomers, vinyl cyclopropane (VCP) derivatives were the most promising compounds since their rROPs led to low-shrinkage materials with attractive applications for dental adhesives and composites. However, functional groups in the side chain of VCP polymers are usually limited to halogens, esters and nitrile functions that restrict the development of new functional VCP polymers by post-polymerization modification. During our investigation of new VCP derivatives, we have achieved a straightforward pathway for the synthesis of VCP bearing azlactone functionality. The azlactone group can react via rapid and efficient ring-opening reactions with different nucleophilic species such as primary amines, hydroxyls, and thiols. We expect that the new VCP-azlactone (co)polymers could serve widely as a reactive platform for the introduction of chemical and biological functionality.

Which polymer scientist are you most inspired by?

I am greatly interested by the work being undertaken in the group of Pr. David Mecerreyes since their research allies polymer chemistry, supramolecular chemistry and nanomaterials science to synthesize innovative polymeric materials.

How do you spend your spare time?
I like cooking and experimenting with new recipes by combining western and oriental flavors. After all, cooking is similar to chemistry. I also like hiking and reading.

What profession would you choose if you weren’t a scientist?

I’d be a Scuba dive master practicing somewhere in the warm waters of tropical seas.

Read Trang’s full article now for FREE

Radical ring-opening polymerization of novel azlactone-functionalized vinyl cyclopropanes

Hien The Ho, Véronique Montembault, Marion Rollet, Soioulata Aboudou, Kamel Mabrouk, Sagrario Pascual, Laurent Fontaine, Didier Gigmes and Trang N. T. Phan 

Azlactone-functionalized polymers are considered powerful materials for bioconjugation and many other applications. However, the limited number of azlactone monomers available and their multistage syntheses pose major challenges for the preparation of new reactive polymers from these monomers. In this article, we report the synthesis of a new class of azlactone monomers based on vinylcyclopropane (VCP). Furthermore, the (co)polymerization of the azlactone-functionalized VCPs has been successfully demonstrated to provide new azlactone polymers by using free-radical polymerization. The ability of the resulting amine-reactive polymers to be engaged in post-polymerization modifications was demonstrated using dansylcadaverine. These new azlactone-functionalized VCP monomers and polymers are potential candidates for the synthesis of innovative (bio)materials.

Nick Warren  is a University Academic Fellow within the School of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Leeds. He was awarded an Masters in Chemistry from the University of Bristol in 2005 following which he conducted two years industrial research. He then moved to the University of Sheffield where he studied for a PhD in Polymer Chemistry within Prof Steve Armes’ research group where he focussed on synthesis of biocompatible block copolymers. Following his PhD, he continued as a postdoctoral researcher in Sheffield working in the area of polymerisation-induced self-assembly (PISA) until 2016, when he moved to Leeds to start his independent research career. His current research aims to exploit the latest advances in polymerisation techniques, combined with new reactor technologies for the design and discovery of controlled-structure polymers.

What was your inspiration in becoming a polymer chemist?

During my undergraduate masters project, I worked on development on combining pH responsive microgels with photo-responsive surfactants. I was fascinated by the ability to use chemical composition as a means of tuning physical characteristics of a material and imparting responsive behaviour. This brought on a specific interest in synthetic polymer chemistry, where there are so many synthetic routes to generating responsive materials. This was the focus of my PhD, where I gained expertise in ATRP and RAFT polymerisation which provided a convenient tool-box allowing me to design and synthesise pH responsive block copolymers.

What was the motivation behind your most recent Polymer Chemistry article?

Continuous-flow techniques are well utilised in small molecule synthesis and are now becoming commonplace in polymer chemistry. In my research group, we aim to use flow-chemistry to conduct polymer synthesis and try and exploit its characteristics to develop new materials, streamline methods for optimising polymerisation processes; or for detailed online monitoring. We have already published some work conducting PISA in flow, which combined my existing expertise in PISA, with my growing interest in reactor technologies, but it became apparent that the relatively long timescales for the reactions meant that there were limited advantages over batch synthesis. We therefore looked to speed up the process, which was relatively straight-forward since our all-acrylamide PISA system was ideally suited to Seb Perrier’s ‘ultrafast’ RAFT technology. By using flow-reactors equipped with online monitoring, we were not only able to synthesise a wide range of PISA nanoparticles on short timescales, but also obtain kinetic data despite the short reaction time.

Which polymer scientist are you most inspired by?

From a synthetic perspective, the work being undertaken in Prof Brent Sumerlin’s group encompasses many of the areas I have a keen interest. I am also inspired by Prof Tanja Junkers’ research, since she is at the forefront of work into applying automation and flow chemistry to polymer synthesis.

How do you spend your spare time?

I now have two children under 3, so I spend most of my time running around after them! We spend quite a lot of time hiking in the Peak District and I also like to cook, which has recently expanded into bread making (to varying degrees of success).

What profession would you choose if you weren’t a scientist?

I’d be a barista with a small coffee shop somewhere sunny.

Read Nick’s full article now for FREE

And if you are interested in reading more about PISA then check out our recent themed collection here

Rapid production of block copolymer nano-objects via continuous-flow ultrafast RAFT dispersion polymerisation

 

Sam Parkinson, Stephen T. Knox, Richard A. Bourne and Nicholas J. Warren

Ultrafast RAFT polymerisation is exploited under dispersion polymerisation conditions for the synthesis of poly(dimethylacrylamide)-b-poly(diacetoneacrylamide) (PDMAm_x–b-PDAAm_y) diblock copolymer nanoparticles. This process is conducted within continuous-flow reactors, which are well suited to fast reactions and can easily dissipate exotherms making the process potentially scalable. Transient kinetic profiles obtained in-line via low-field flow nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (flow-NMR) confirmed the rapid rate of polymerisation whilst still maintaining pseudo first order kinetics. Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) reported molar mass dispersities, Đ < 1.3 for a series of PDMAm_x–b-PDAAm_y diblock copolymers (x = 46, or 113; y = 50, 75, 100, 150 and 200) confirming control over molecular weight was maintained. Particle characterisation by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) indicated successful preparation of spheres and a majority worm phase at 90 °C but the formation of vesicular morphologies was only possible at 70 °C. To maintain the rapid rate of reaction at this lower temperature, initiator concentration was increased which was also required to overcome the gradual ingress of oxygen into the PFA tubing which was quenching the reaction at low radical concentrations. Ill-defined morphologies observed at PDAAm DPs close to the worm-vesicle boundary, combined with a peak in molar mass dispersity suggested poor mixing prevented an efficient morphological transition for these samples. However, by targeting higher PDAAm DPs, the additional monomer present during the transition plasticises the chains to facilitate formation of vesicles at PDAAm DPs of ≥300.