Pursuing Tailor-Made Materials

Researchers at Imperial College have developed a method of controlling composition across a range of polymers and have been conducting studies on producing polyesters and polycarbonates, which are attractive materials as they are partially obtained from renewable resources, such as plants and carbon dioxide.

Polymers are naturally occurring, for example as complex sugars and DNA; their molecular structures comprise thousands of repeat units of smaller molecules called monomers and it is the nature and organisation of these monomers within the polymer chain that determines a particular material’s properties.

The team, led by Charlotte Williams, Professor of Catalysis and Polymer Chemistry has been able to demonstrate*  how the chemical reactions used to produce polymers can be controlled, especially in fixing the composition of a polymer using a mixture of up to three different monomers.

“Our method uses the chemistry between the catalyst and the polymer chain, which affects the kind of monomer added to the chain and so what type of material is produced.  This is a different way of controlling the polymer composition, and one that gives us more control over the properties of the end product,” said Professor Williams.

"Our research is the first step in this direction, but may lead, one day, to scientists being able to engineer polymers with much more desirable properties, such as elasticity or toughness, as well.”

An Imperial spin-out Econic Technologies, founded by Professor Williams is licensing the discovery and commercialising these materials.

*Published in Angewandte Chemie