News

Maarten was invited to contribute to the 2021 Pioneering Investigators issue of the journal Polymer Chemistry. As explained on their website, this collection “gathers the very best work from mid-career researchers who have firmly established themselves in the field of polymer chemistry and continuously publish creative, innovative work”. The full issue can be read here.

Last week Shauni Keller started in the group as a postdoc on a NWO GoChem KIEM project, entitled “Metaschuim – een nieuw en effectief geluidsisolerend materiaal“. This project, which was started as part of the Top Sector Chemistry Student Competition and which was ultimately the winning project, is now aiming at a more systematic study how foam-like polymer materials containing beads can be prepared, characterised and applied as sound-absorbing materials. Based on the principle of local resonances and viscous dampening, such ‘metafoams’ are capable of dampening both high and low frequency sound. As a result, metafoams can help to tackle the issue of noise pollution, which has increased in severity over the years as a result of population growth, advances in technology and urbanisation.

Good luck, Shauni!

During the M2i conference held this week, Lucas Teunissen was awarded the poster prize in the category: Best Public Relations value, for his poster entitled “Responsive surface properties by non-sticking copolymer brushes on modified steels“. Congrats, Lucas!

This week we not only congratulate Sybren on his birthday, but also on acceptance of his paper in Polymer Chemistry. In this work, Sybren has shed light on the effect of polarity on the dynamic material properties of polyimine-based covalent adaptable networks. The paper will be part of the Polymer Chemistry Pioneering Investigators Issue 2021, to which Maarten was invited. The accepted manuscript is available here.

During this year’s online CHAINS conference Annemieke was awarded the prize for the best poster pitch. This new category was added to this year’s online edition of the conference. Her poster was called Self-Healing Antifouling Coatings. Congrats, Annemieke!

Sybren’s first paper was published in the journal Chemical Science. In his paper, entitled Molecular Control over Vitrimer-like Mechanics – Tuneable Dynamic Motifs based on the Hammett Equation, Sybren demonstrated how the physical-organic Hammett equation can be used to control the material properties of imine-based covalent adaptable networks. His results guide the way to durable and sustainable materials with unique and predictable properties from a bottom-up physical-organic approach.

Sybren’s project is part of the Vidi program of Maarten on 4D control over smart dynamic polymers, financed by NWO.

The full paper can be read here.

Together with Matt Baker (MERLN Institute for Technology-Inspired Regenerative Medicine, Maastricht University) Maarten is co-organising a focus session during the next NWO Chains conference. Their focus session is entitled Dynamic Polymers for Advanced Materials, is scheduled for Wednesday December 9, from 14.15-15.35h, and will host a combination of international and national speakers.

While traditional polymeric materials are built from static covalent bonds, the incorporation of dynamic, responsive and reversible bonds into polymeric materials provides enhanced properties for many fields. In particular, very recently the use of dynamic covalent bonds, which combine robustness (due to the covalent nature of the bond) with reversibility, has opened up the routes towards new functional polymers, even beyond the scope attainable through –by now– classical supramolecular bonds. These materials range from recyclable and self-healing materials, to dynamic and stimuli-responsive smart systems, smartly designed dynamic polymers are beginning to impact our lives in applications from manufacturing to biomedical implants. This session will focus on recent developments in the use of dynamic covalent motifs as the reversible units within materials.

Make sure to register for Chains, if you want to attend this focus session.

The group welcomes the thesis students that have joined the lab for their thesis project. Good luck to Daphne, Eline, Luuk, Martijn and Thomas!

The results of a collaborative project with the group of Patricia Dankers has been published in Macromolecules. In the project the functionalization of a supramolecular biomaterial with zwitterionic poly(sulfobetaine methacrylate) via atom transfer radical polymerization from a macroinitiator additive was achieved. In addition, the polymerization from the macroinitiator additive was successfully translated to functional electrospun scaffolds, showing the potential for this functionalization strategy in supramolecular material systems. The full paper can be read here.

Esther and Andriy’s joint paper on the design, synthesis and characterisation of so-called bottlebrush coatings, based on a powerful combination of poly(N-(2-hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide) [poly(HPMA)] – known for its antifouling properties – and poly(L-lysine) (PLL) – selected for its ability to strongly adhere to surfaces – has been accepted for publication in Langmuir. Three routes to prepare antifouling coatings were developed by Esther and Andriy, and evaluated in terms of ease of synthesis, scalability, ease of characterization, and a preliminary investigation of their antifouling performance. The full paper can be read here.