Conventional polymer networks are composed of strong, fixed covalent cross-links. The covalent cross-links render polymer networks with outstanding mechanical properties, heat stability, and chemical resistance; however, they also prevent polymer networks from being decross-linked or/and recycled into similar-value products at the end of their life, leading to environmental and economic...
Oil paintings are complex works of art, even on the molecular level. Drying oils cure into a solid film through autoxidation and polymerization reactions and then degrade, leading to changes in material properties and film stability. This chemistry can be captured in a computational model and used by researchers in...
Molybdenum oxides and sulfides are earth-abundant materials known to catalyze a wide array of reactions, including dehydrogenation, hydrotreating, and higher alcohols synthesis. In particular, alkane and alcohol dehydrogenation are of interest given recent shifts in the energy landscape away from traditional petroleum feedstocks and towards natural gas and renewable energy...
Cells are primarily comprised of metal ions, small molecules, proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. The ability to probe these molecules in single living cells can shed new light on chemical processes inside of cells or allow disease diagnosis based on molecular profiling. However, there exists a lack of tools that...
The Escherichia coli ribosome is a molecular machine capable of sequence-defined polymerization of -amino acids into proteins, a feat unmatched by any other current synthetic catalyst. It is complex in its structure, comprised of 3 RNA parts (the 5S, 16S, and 23S ribosomal RNAs) and 54 ribosomal proteins (r-proteins). Efforts...
Conventional cross-linked polymers are widely used owing to their outstanding stability and performance. However, permanent cross-links in these polymer networks prevent them from being recycled or reprocessed at the end of life, leading to major sustainability and economic losses. The recycling issue associated with polyurethane (PU) thermoset wastes exemplifies such...
Biomass has the potential to be our country’s leading renewable source of energy. Specifically, fast pyrolysis is a promising method for the conversion of biomass to valuable fuels and chemicals. Given that fast pyrolysis has a residence time of about two seconds, computational methods are particularly useful in obtaining product...
Conventional polymer network materials, e.g., rubber tires, cannot be efficiently recycled for high-value applications because of their permanent network structures. Therefore, at the end of use, none or only a small fraction of the economic value can be recovered from these materials. Scrapped tires demonstrate well this issue along with...