Adam Veige
University of Florida, FL·Chemistry
Nearly all synthetic polymers, the large chain molecules in plastics and many everyday materials, are long chains with two ends. Those chain ends help determine a material's properties.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
- Topics
cyclic polymers
ring polymers
polymer synthesis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Synthesize a new tungsten or molybdenum alkylidyne catalyst that polymerizes alkynes into new cyclic polymers, exploring new ligand designs and metal attachment strategies.
- Reduce the synthesis of tungsten- and molybdenum-based cyclic polymer catalysts to three or four steps, making them easier for other labs to obtain.
- Build tethered alkylidene catalysts from commercial materials using a new ligand design based on a doubly tethered metallacyclobutane for metathesis chemistry.
More about the research
Cyclic polymers are rings with no ends. They tend to have better optical properties, higher melting points, lower friction, lower viscosity and smaller size. The challenge is building them efficiently and at large scale. This requires catalysts, molecules built around a metal ion that collect small building blocks (monomers) and stitch them into a ring.
Why it matters
Cyclic polymers could provide materials with better optical clarity, higher heat resistance, lower friction and lower viscosity than ordinary chain polymers. Catalysts that are simpler to make and more widely available could let many more chemists produce and study these materials, potentially leading to new plastics and specialty polymers.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Loi Do
University of Houston, TX·Chemistry
Develop a cation-exchange strategy in which an olefin polymerization catalyst switches between monometallic and bimetallic forms during chain growth. The goal is controlled polymers with many chains per metal site.
Matthew Montemore
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Engineering·Early-career
Screen alloy-host single-atom alloys with machine learning and density functional theory to find stable, active catalysts for oxidation and alkane conversion, then move top candidates to surface-science and nanoparticle tests.
Chenfeng Ke
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Chemistry
Construct HCOFs from rigid macrocycles and organic cages with built-in recognition sites to selectively bind molecules of similar size and control solid-state assembly.
The school
University of Florida: 65 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 795 research doctorates a year.
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