Functional and Porous Polymers from Bicyclic Bridged Building Blocks

Professor Tim Swager - Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Host: Al Nelson

The ability of triptycene and related structures to produce materials with unusual properties is simply remarkable. Beyond their initial utility in preventing self-quenching in emissive semiconducting polymers for chemical sensors, we have found that they can guide and enhance alignment to liquid crystals, produce high modulus low dielectric constant materials, functional as gas permeable materials, simultaneously give dramatic increases in strength and ductility of polymers, and provide for novel electronic interactions. In this lecture, Prof. Swager will detail select examples from his group's recent triptycene polymer efforts including:  (1) post-polymerization functionalization to give materials with high proton and anion conductivities, (2) scalable synthesis of materials that behave as chemical sponges for aromatic molecules, (3) polymerization of shape persistent iptycene macromonomers to produce high free volume materials, (4) the use of high free volume to create high performance gas separation membranes, (5) iptycene materials as stabilizing hosts for catalytic nanoparticles, (6) polymers and molecules with electronically active elements that communicate by homo-conjugation to give thermally activated delayed fluorescence and (7) photoredox catalysis.