News

Our group has a PhD vacancy on a project that is focussed on polymer materials that contribute to a circular economy. This PhD position is part of our DynaBranch consortium that consists of partners from Wageningen University, Eindhoven University of Technology, Avans Hogeschool and SABIC as industrial partner/sponsor. Our consortium was awarded a KIC Circularity grant from NWO to develop a program on circular polymers.

The aim of this program is to increase the recyclability of an important class of engineering plastics: polycarbonates. For this, we will (chemically) modify polycarbonates by dynamic-covalent chemistry. These new polymers will be combined with existing polycarbonate (as part of a recycling stream) to achieve (re)processing that is compatible with existing infrastructure.

The overall project will cover topics from organic/polymer synthesis, polymer processing and characterisation, ageing and recycling studies, as well as socio-economic analyses related to the acceptance of these new materials.

If you would like to find out more about the vacancy and/or if you wish to apply, please use this link.

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!

This week we said goodbye to Vahid, who left our group after his postdoc appointment. Thanks for the nice collaboration, Vahid, and good luck for your future!

This month, both Monica and Marcela successfully defended their MSc thesis project on new polyesters for food packaging. Both projects were a collaboration with Deniz Turan-Kunter of the Food Quality and Design group at WUR. Congrats to both students, thanks to Vahid for supervising both students, and thanks to Deniz for the opportunity to collaborate!

Simon’s latest work on dynamic boronate-TetraAzaADamantane networks has been published in the special issue on Dynamic Bonds in Polymers of the Journal of Polymer Science. In his paper, Simon compared two different dynamic boronic acid based covalent adaptable networks, namely, a conventional boronate-diol and a novel boronate-TetraAzaADamantane (TAAD) system. Simon found that incorporating boronate-TAAD bonds in networks results in stiffer materials, as seen in a slower relaxation and higher shear and storage moduli. You can read the full story here.

In addition, this work also made it on the cover of the special issue on Dynamic Bonds in Polymers.

Maarten was interviewed by RSC Chemistry World to comment on the recent Science paper by Stuart Rowan. In his inspiring paper (which can be accessed here) Rowan’s team developed a ‘pluripotent polymer’ based on dynamic covalent bonds’, which allowed them to tune the material’s properties by controlling the tempering temperature.

The Chemistry World interview can be read here.

The work jointly undertaken by Sybren and Vahid was accepted by ACS Applied Polymer Materials. Their work looked in detail at the solubility of covalent adaptable networks, either based on dynamic covalent imine bonds or vinylogous urea bonds. The combination of their studies with existing literature provides a better understanding of the solubility of CANs and their applications as recyclable thermosets. You can find the full paper here.