New Functional Groups for Tailoring Polymer Properties

With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry, and the Office of Strategic Initiatives in the Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences, Prof. Brett VanVeller of Iowa State University will develop new classes of polymeric systems. The design of these polymer systems fundamentally differs from conventional approaches, with characteristics of antimicrobial surface, cell-penetrating agents, and polyelectrolyte materials. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects that antimicrobial resistance is on course to overtake cancer as the leading cause of death worldwide by 2050, increasing the urgency for new approaches in antimicrobial design. The VanVeller team is also well-positioned to provide the highest level of education and training for students from underrepresented groups in science. Plans are in place to enhance scientific literacy and critical thinking skills among high school students. Our goal in this application is to develop efficient and robust methods to harness an unexplored functional group in polymer chemistry to access more diverse functional polymers. Our central hypothesis is that sulfur-containing groups can serve as a synthetic branch point to introduce and tune the properties of polymers. Accomplishing our goals will create new knowledge about the polymerization and reactivity of largely unknown functional groups in polymer chemistry. The specific objectives of this project will (1) Identify factors that impact the polymerization of sulfur-containing monomers, (2) develop methods for post-polymerization installation of other functional groups, and (3) expand the functional groups that are accessible on radical chain-growth polymer scaffolds. Collectively, the proposed activities will explore methods to access three distinct functional groups in polymers. The outcomes of this work will expand both our knowledge of radical chemistry and the tunability of sulfur- and nitrogen-containing structures. These outcomes will thereby serve to enhance our understanding of polymeric reactivity and design. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.