The discovery, development and deployment of new materials provides new business opportunities as well as to drive advances in high value applications ranging from microelectronics to medicine.  Since most of the efficient polymer-forming reactions have been exploited, polymer science continues to be perceived as a mature field.  As advances in computational chemistry continue, its influence on materials development on multiple length scales, the creation and understanding of new polymer-forming reactions, catalysis and the modeling of supramolecular assemblies is becoming more pervasive. For example, catalysis is a foundational pillar for sustainable chemical processes; the discovery of highly active, environmentally benign catalytic processes is a central goal of Green Chemistry.  We have developed a broad class of highly active, environmentally benign organic catalysts for the synthesis of biodegradable and biocompatible plastics that was largely driven by the convergence of experimental and computational chemistries. Fundamental mechanistic and theoretical investigations have provided new scientific insights on the diversity of mechanistic pathways for organocatalytic polymerization reactions and the opportunities that these new insights have created for the synthesis of well-defined macromolecular architectures.  The monomer feedstocks have focused on those from renewable resources such as lactides, lactones and carbonates, but also from petrochemical feedstocks. Application of the organic catalysis and the synthesis of degradable macromolecules with precisely defined molecular weights, end-group fidelity and backbone functionality is ideal for the emerging field of nanomedicine. Applying the tools of nanotechnology and advanced computation provides new insight into materials design with molecular-level medical effects.<br/>

From microelectronics to nanomedicine: Application of organic catalysis and sustainable chemistry

254th National Meeting (2017)

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