James Reuther - UMass Lowell

Seminars and Colloquia

October 20, 2022
10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Location
Steele 006
Sponsored by
Chemistry Department
Audience
Public
More information
Andrew Coombs

New Applications for In Situ Polymer Self-Assembly: Sustainable Water Treatment and Tunable Chiral Nanomaterials

Bio: Prof. James Reuther attended Virginia Tech for his undergraduate studies where he received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. He then joined the doctoral program at North Carolina State University performing research under Prof. Bruce Novak in the fields of synthetic organic and polymer chemistry. Upon completion of his Ph.D. in 2014, he joined the research group of Prof. Eric Anslyn at the University of Texas at Austin where he switched research focuses to peptide and supramolecular chemistry. He started at University of Massachusetts Lowell in the 2018 as an Assistant Professor of Polymer Science where his independent research group focuses on fundamental and applied polymer chemistry including novel syntheses of nanoparticle networks for water treatment, reactive nanofibers for nerve agent detoxification and scalable fabrication of chiral nanomaterials.

Abstract: Traditional polymer self-assembly approaches take advantage of amphiphilic macromolecules introduced into selective solvents to generate colloidal polymer nanomaterials at relatively low concentrations (~0.1 wt%) limiting the overall scalability of these bottom-up nanofabrication methods. The advent of in situ self-assembly approaches, however, have provided tractable means to generate streamlined methodologies for fabricating polymer nanostructures at high solids content (ca. 5 – 79 w%) directly upon polymerization of insoluble polymer segments. In particular, so-called polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) protocols have established unique advantages to in situ, scalable fabrication of shape-tunable polymer nanostructures. In the Reuther lab, we have developed novel procedures for PISA combined with photo-controlled atom transfer radical polymerizations (PhotoATR-PISA) to generate shape-tunable, functional polymer nanoparticles in a scalable fashion extending applicable solids content for PISA to nearly 80 w%. Using various chemistries, these polymer nanoparticles can be rapidly crosslinked together in one pot to form porous nanoparticle networks which act as potent adsorbents for water treatment applications. Introduction of dynamic covalent inter-nanoparticle crosslinks facilitates reconfigurable, nanoparticle covalent adaptable networks (NanoCANs) capable of facile and sustainable adsorbent regeneration using various stimuli. 

Location
Steele 006
Sponsored by
Chemistry Department
Audience
Public
More information
Andrew Coombs