Sustainable chemistry together with green chemistry continue to provide an overarching motivation for our discovery of advanced materials and advanced manufacturing, addressing end-of-product-life challenges for polymeric products with a circular economy paradigm. Our research integrates green synthetic methods and sustainable vision as a cross-cutting initiative. This lecture will highlight recent advances in polymer design with a “molecules to manufacturing to marketplace” perspective, and crosslinking plays a major role in the design of elastomers for 3D stereolithographic printing, polyimides for vat photopolymerization, and novel polymer architectures for binder jetting of water-soluble adhesives. Pyrolysis of fully aromatic polyimides that result from vat photopolymerization yield complex geometries of carbon with desirable conductivity and thermal resistance. In addition, recent efforts in thermoplastic elastomer design with block and segmented copolymers illustrate the complementary nature of the physical crosslink <i>versus</i> the covalent crosslink. This lecture will illustrate various crosslinking strategies where the crosslinks are susceptible to reversibility using various external stimuli, ranging from heat and pH to photo-irradiation and ionic salts. This lecture honors Joe Salamone for his continuing legacy of functional polymer design at the interface of photochemistry and the impact of network structure on emerging technology. Moreover, his steadfast dedication to translational polymer science and engineering will continue to impact our field for decades to come. The following figure depicts acetal-containing polyether crosslinking agents for the preparation of network structures that are susceptible to acid-cleavage, suggesting impact in 3D printed elastomers and drug delivery applications.

Asking more from our networks: From 3D printing carbonaceous objects to supramolecular elastomers

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.