Ryan Archer

WRA

 

Ph.D. Institution: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Adviser: Michael Schulz)

E-mail: [email protected]

 

Princeton Postdoctoral Research: Polyolefins remain one of the most prominent classes of plastics due to their low cost, light weight, and chemical resistance. Most polyolefins (e.g., HDEP, LLDPE, and iPP) are employed in myriad of applications, and are derived from abundant, inexpensive, petroleum-derived monomers. However, many of these materials were developed to maximize material properties without considering end-of-life in the material design.


Recently, the Chirik Group (Princeton University, Department of Chemistry) reported an iron- catalyzed [2+2] cycloaddition–oligomerization of butadiene to yield telechelic (1,n’-divinyl)oligocyclobutadiene (DVOCB). DVOCB not only exhibits interesting thermal and structural properties but is also chemically recyclable: Re-exposure of DVOCB to the iron catalyst under vacuum results in de-oligomerization back to pristine butadiene. My research seeks to prepare new, chemically recyclable (co)polyolefins from DVOCB using a host of polymerization methods including acyclic diene metathesis (ADMET) polymerization, and ring- opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP). The resulting properties of these new materials will be measured using DSC, DMA, and in some cases SAXS.