Welcome to the website of the group of Maarten Smulders, which is part of the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry at Wageningen University & Research. Please check out our website to find out more about the research of the group, the researchers, as well as opportunities to join the group.
Recent news
Two papers out for Lucas
Congrats to Lucas for having two papers coming out in one week!
His paper in Advanced Materials Interfaces presents a grafting-to coating approach that yields polymer brushes up to an unprecedented thickness of 19 nm. To this end, an easy-to-apply poly(dopamine) primer layer was optimised to promote binding of a block copolymer with a reactive poly(glycidyl methacrylate) block.
In Lucas’ second paper that came out this week, published in Langmuir, he expanded on this grafting-to method, by demonstrating it can be used on a variety of substrates, and for a range of block copolymers.
Review on Phase Separation out in Soft Matter
Our recent review on Phase Separation in Supramolecular and Covalent Adaptable Networks has been published in Soft Matter. The review covers a broad range of important works and information regarding the developments and applications of phase separation in dynamic polymer networks. It highlights how material properties can be tuned and enhanced, but also discusses the underlying mechanisms behind phase separation. Thanks to Martijn de Heer Kloots, Sybren Schoustra and Joshua Dijksman for bringing this joint project to a successful end.
The article is available here (Open Access).
Annemieke and Simon will present at Dutch Polymer Days 2023
At the upcoming Dutch Polymer Days, both Annemieke and Simon will present their research:
- On Monday (April 24) Simon will present his research on Covalent Adaptable Networks using Boronate Linkages by incorporating TetraAzaADamantanes.
- Next day (April 25) Annemieke will give a lecture on Self-Healing Antifouling Polymer Brushes.
If you’re attending DPD2023, please check out their lecture!
Welcome to Vahid
This week Vahid Asadi Alghalandis joined our group as a postdoctoral researcher. His research will focus on how the concept of phase separation can be used in covalent adaptable networks. Good luck, Vahid!