Publications related to Functionalized Ionic (Poly)Styrenes and their Application as Catalysts in the Cycloaddition of CO2 to Epoxides

The Structural Dispersity of Oligoethylene Glycol-Containing Polymer Brushes Determines Their Interfacial Properties

Harm-Anton Klok, Alberto Ongaro, Irene Filipucci

Ought to their bioinert properties and facile synthesis, poly[(oligoethylene glycol)methacrylate]s (POEGMAs) have been raised as attractive alternatives to poly(ethylene glycols) (PEGs) in an array of (bio)material applications, especially when they are ap ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

New Polymers from Biomass-Derived Hydroxycinnamic Acid Derivatives

Ghezae Tekleab

Polymers play a central role in shaping our world across various fields, but their heavy reliance on petrochemicals poses climate change, environmental and health risks. To address and alleviate these issues, transitioning to sustainable polymers, sourced ...

EPFL2024

Operando Observation of (Bi)carbonate Precipitation during Electrochemical CO2 Reduction in Strongly Acidic Electrolytes

Corsin Battaglia, Alessandro Senocrate, Nukorn Plainpan

Precipitation of (bi)carbonate salts during the electrochemical CO2 reduction (CO2RR) has been identified as a major cause of degradation and one of the main challenges to be overcome before implementing this technology on the industrial scale. Recently, t ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Soft Mechanochemistry of Disulfide-Crosslinked Polymer Networks

Zhao Meng

Mechanochemistry harnesses mechanical force to facilitate chemical reactions. Traditionally, the field of polymer mechanochemistry has used methods to activate chemical bonds, which use forces that are larger than those that are required to break a covalen ...

EPFL2024

Biobased Composites from Eugenol- and Coumarin-Derived Methacrylic Latex and Hemp Nanocellulose: Cross-Linking via [2+2] Photocycloaddition and Barrier Properties

Yves Leterrier, Sara Dalle Vacche

A novel-biobased latex was synthesized by redox-initiated emulsion copolymerization of ethoxy dihydroeugenyl methacrylate with 5 wt % of a photosensitive methacrylate containing a coumarin group. A stable copolymer latex having 16 wt % solids content and a ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

New Applications of 1,3,2-Diazaphospholenes in Catalysis

Johannes Klett

The constant urge to construct new molecules in an economical and sustainable fashion led to the development of numerous metal-catalyzed transformations. Organocatalysts consisting of abundant and more sustainable elements offer an elegant solution to over ...

EPFL2024

Architecturally Diverse Polymer Brushes Prepared via Surface-Initiated Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

Sabrina Sant

Polymer brushes, which are polymers anchored to a solid substrate by one chainend, have the ability to modify the properties of an underlying substrate, offering intriguing features such as enhanced lubrication, reduced friction, colloidal stability, and a ...

EPFL2023

Supramolecular Polymer Brushes Grown by Surface-Initiated Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization from Cucurbit[7]uril-based Non-Covalent Initiators

Harm-Anton Klok, Friederike Katharina Metze, Irene Filipucci

Polymer brushes are densely grafted, chain end-tethered assemblies of polymers that can be produced via surface-initiated polymerization. Typically, this is accomplished using initiators or chain transfer agents that are covalently attached to the substrat ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2023

Revealing the Formation Dynamics of Janus Polymer Particles: Insights from Experiments and Molecular Dynamics

Philip Robin Loche

Seeded emulsion polymerization is one of the best-known methods for preparing polymer particles with a controlled size, composition, and shape. It first requires the preparation of seed particles, which are then swollen with additional monomer (the same as ...

Amer Chemical Soc2023

Opportunities, Challenges, and Pitfalls in Making, Characterizing, and Understanding Polymer Brushes

Harm-Anton Klok

Polymer brushes have been theoretically described, their behavior under diverse conditions has been modeled, and their preparation via surface-initiated polymerizations (SIPs) has been progressively refined. However, despite three decades of research endea ...

American Chemical Society2023

Separable Brønsted acidic imidazolium salts for polysaccharide hydrolysis in water

Kedar Ashok Abhyankar

The current reliance on limited petrochemical resources and the resulting ecological outcomes have made the exploration of alternative chemical and energy feedstocks invaluable. As such, the development of sustainable processes with a less harmful total en ...

EPFL2023

Bottlebrush Dielectric Elastomers with Improved Properties for Actuation

Yeerlan Adeli

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) are elastic capacitors composed of a pair of compliant electrodes and a soft dielectric elastomer film sandwiched in between. This kind of stretchable capacitors can be actuated when charged, can generate electricity fr ...

EPFL2023

Supramolecular Modifications of Semicrystalline Polymers

Michael Alan Giffin

Supramolecular interactions play an important role in defining the structure and the resulting mechanical properties of materials. For instance, interchain hydrogen-bonding in PAs gives them superior strength and stiffness in engineering materials, while t ...

EPFL2023

Deriving Major Ion Concentrations at High Resolution from Continuous Electrical Conductivity Measurements in Karst Systems

Paolo Benettin

Time series of hydrochemical parameters support the investigation of dominant karst hydrological processes and conceptual model structures. Nevertheless, high costs for sample collection and analyses cause hydrochemical data to be rarely available at a suf ...

SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG2023

Pathways to enhance electrochemical CO2 reduction identified through direct pore-level modeling

Sophia Haussener, Shuo Liu, Etienne Boutin, Evan Fair Johnson

Electrochemical conversion of CO2 to fuels and valuable products is one pathway to reduce CO2 emissions. Electrolyzers using gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs) show much higher current densities than aqueous phase electrolyzers, yet models for multi-physical ...

2023

Supramolecular Polymer Brushes

Friederike Katharina Metze

Thin polymer coatings present a method to modify the surface properties of underlying substrates. Polymer-coated surfaces have been used as anticorrosive materials, surfaces with special wetting properties, antifriction materials, and as materials for biom ...

EPFL2023

MPD and TMC supply as parameters to describe synthesis-morphology-performance relationships of polyamide thin film composite membranes

Kumar Varoon Agrawal, Cédric Karel J Van Goethem

This study assesses the influence during interfacial polymerization on polyamide thin film composite (TFC) morphology and performance of varying monomer concentrations and organic phases with widely varying physico-chemical characteristics (interfacial ten ...

ELSEVIER2023

An Overview of Heterogeneous Catalysts Based on Hypercrosslinked Polystyrene for the Synthesis and Transformation of Platform Chemicals Derived from Biomass

Lioubov Kiwi

Platform chemicals, also known as chemical building blocks, are substances that serve as starting materials for the synthesis of various value-added products, which find a wide range of applications. These chemicals are the key ingredients for many fine an ...

MDPI2023

Enhancement of Pressure-Sensitive Adhesive by CO2 Laser Treatment

Dario Floreano, Jianhang Yang, Jun Shintake, Vivek Ramachandran, Yegor Piskarev, Michael Dickey

Pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSAs) are polymeric films that can be adhered to and detached from surfaces without leaving residue. Researchers are looking to enhance the bond strength between PSAs and different substrates. It can be achieved by tuning PSA' ...

2022

In Situ Monitoring of the Surface Evolution of a Silver Electrode from Polycrystalline to Well-Defined Structures

Yunchang Liang

Capturing the surface-structural dynamics of metal electrocatalysts under certain electrochemical environments is intriguingly desired for understanding the behavior of various metal-based electrocatalysts. However, in situ monitoring of the evolution of a ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022