News

This month, Natalia started as PhD student in our group. Her PhD project will focus on polymer materials that contribute to a circular economy. Her 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.

Annemieke’s computational research on metal-stabilised imine complexes was published in Chemisty – A European Journal. The work describes the results from a DFT study on condensation and transimination reactions of an Fe²⁺-coordinated diimine pyridine pincer. The full paper can be read here.

At the upcoming IUPAC Chains conference in The Hague, Simon will present his latest research about a new dynamic covalent (TAAD) motif for more robust boronate-based materials. If you’re attending, please you can come to Simon’s talk on Tuesday August 22 at 13.20h, in parallel session 24 (room Amazon).

What is more, Simon’s second paper has come out in the Journal of Polymer Science.

The work by Sybren and Vahid on the use of hydrogen bonding as additional, stabilising interaction in imine-based covalent adaptable networks (CANs) was accepted for publication in the European Polymer Journal. Their work revealed how intramolecular hydrogen bonding can reduce the creep in imine CANs. If you want to learn more, please read their paper here.

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.

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).

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!

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!

In the same week as Sybren’s PhD defence, his work on self-healing materials was covered by various media:

• Omroep Gelderland visited the lab to learn more about the self-healing imine polymers that Sybren developed during his PhD project. The corresponding article is available here, while the video can be seen here.
• Maarten was interviewed on NPO Radio 1 (the national news and sports channel) on the same topic. The item can be listened back here (starting at 21:43 min).
• EditieNL (a topical national magazine program) also visited our lab to interview Sybren and to learn more about our ‘futuristic self-healing plastics’. The video item can be seen here (item starts at 07:50 min).
• Our own university magazine, Resource, also interviewed Sybren. The interview article is available here.

Today, Sybren successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled Molecular Tuneability of Imine-based Covalent Adaptable Networks. Congrats to Sybren for this great achievement, and thanks his opponents, Filip Du Prez, Katja Loos, Hans Heuts and Jasper van der Gucht, for their participation in Sybren’s defence.