Functionalised Organic Polymers: Material Design, Synthesis and Exploitation

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This project aims to develop new synthetic polymer chemistry methods for the preparation and functionalisation of the next generation of organic polymers, especially porous organic polymers, using facile, versatile and cost-effective synthetic routes. There will be a special focus on the production of functionalised organic polymers prepared in practically useful physical formats (such as beaded formats), novel format variants (e.g., core-shell polymer microspheres with or without embedded magnetic components), and materials with ion-exchange character (potentially including materials with pendent amphoteric residues).The desire to develop core-shell polymer microsphere constructs is driven by the need to take full advantage of short diffusion path lengths in next-generation chemical separation media. Furthermore, the ability to fine-tune pore structure and functionality is critical because this is one way in which the strength and/or selectivity of sorption of gases, or analytes from liquid phases, or biomolecules/cells, onto porous polymers can be controlled. Hypercrosslinking strategies will be evaluated as a route into highly porous materials; hypercrosslinked polymers are remarkable species that possess ultra-high specific surface areas (> 1,000 m2 g-1) and a very unusual ability to sorb significant amounts of water, in spite of their apparently hydrophobic nature ("amphipathic, polymer micro-sponges"). The potential applications of the novel materials are manifold, and includes environmental analysis, environmental remediation, disease diagnosis based upon biomarker detection (biofluids and foodstuffs), which will feed into other research programmes and networks.Through an ambitious work programme, which will tackle both fundamental and applied research problems, the key objectives will be to: 1) Develop new approaches for the control of polymer format and porosity, where the polymers are preferably infinite polymer networks (WP1); 2) Develop synthetic strategies for the embedding of chemical functionality into the materials, through either copolymerisation strategies or polymer-analogous reactions (thereby allowing the functionalised polymers to interact with their surroundings in a controlled and predictable fashion) (WP2); 3) Evaluation of the most promising materials in real-world applications (WP3).