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This week, Maarten will be presenting at the IUPAC MACRO 2024 conference in Warwick (UK). He will present work on phase separation in imine-based covalent adaptable networks. If you’re attending the conference, and would like to know more about how we serendipitously found phase separation in our imine networks and how this phenomenon affected their material properties, please come the Dynamic Polymer Networks session on Tuesday afternoon (2.00pm) in FAB003.

Simon’s work on the integration of dynamic covalent bonds into polystyrene-based polymers was published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials. Simon -with support of Sagar- reported the synthesis and characterization of a polystyrene polymer, functionalised with TetraAzaADamantanes and cross-linked with dynamic covalent boronic esters. The polystyrene-based materials showed good solvent resistance with a high remaining insoluble fraction. In line with the typical behavior of traditional covalent adaptable networks, the prepared polystyrene-based boronate-TetraAzaADamantane materials were able to undergo stress relaxation. The full story can be read here.

The new project website for the All in the Same Boat consortium, of which Maarten is a member, is online. This consortium, which brings together a variety of scientists and social partners and which is funded by the Centre of Unusual Collaborations, addressed the urgent societal challenge of water security.

Please check out the website if you want to know more about the project, the consortium and or the Centre of Unusual Collaborations.

Yesterday Annemieke successfully defended her PhD thesis, entitled ‘Improving the world one monomer at a time – In silico and on silica investigations of polymerization reactions and polymers‘. Congrats, Annemieke, on this amazing achievement, and good luck with your future!