Soraya Pashaei Marandi Chem 111 464 27 October 2015 Chemistry Lecture Series The lecture series on October 13th was given by Professor Karen Wooley She is a professor of Texas A M that studied her undergraduate years at Oregon State and received her PhD from Cornell University The title of her presentation was The Power of Chemistry to Unleash the Potential of Functional Sophisticated Nanoscopic Macromolecules Professor Wooley discussed the fact that chemist are control freaks that seek to understand and manipulate matter at molecular atomic and or subatomic levels Synthetic chemists are those that design and build new molecules Most of the lecture went into in depth discussion about polymers and how they are used to better the world as a whole with their functionality The simplest time of macromolecule is a linear polymer The different types of copolymers include statistical alternating block and gradient The properties of each of these differ depending on their functionality of being a mechanical a barrier or a signaling function In order for the development of macroscopic to nanoscopic devices to occur there is motivation by application but it is mainly driven by fundamentals The dimensional evolution of synthetic materials is from small molecules to polymers as building blocks Goals of functional polymer chemistry include polymer coated magnetic nanoparticles for oil spill clean up nanoparticles for infectious disease treatment and controlled polymer architectures for advances photoresist technologies The Magnetic Shell Knedel like MSCK nanoparticle is designed for pollutant recovery It has an amphiphilic core shell morphology The hydrophilic shell allows for suspension in water The hydrophobic core sequesters hydrophobic pollutants The shell cross linked protects micelles and stabilizes vessels There are also entrapped magnetic oxide nanoparticles which creates high density NP loading Magnetic Hybrid Networks MHNs are a contrast of inorganic and organic molecules MHNs exhibit potential for recyclability due to the fact that 90 percent of oil originally captured could be recovered and reused The new multi compartment MSCK nano clusters are incorporating satellite amphiphilic shell crosslinked knedel like SCK nanoparticles with differing compositions which offer enhanced tunability of material for targeted remediation for infectious disease treatment The SCK hydrophilic shell allows for water solubility and covalent linkage to inorganic components The hydrophobic core preferentially sequesters hydrophobic pollutants The large inorganic core is for magnetic response to the material There is then the principle of photoresists for lithography Negative tone resists with vertical alignment of molecular brushes as ultra high resolution macromolecular pixels The top of the brush is the hydrophobic segment with low surface energy The bottom of the brush is the hydrophilic segment with high surface energy and is crosslinkable There is a RAFT and ROMP approach to block brush photoresist polymers Combinations of RAFT polymerization and sequential ROMPs are applied for preparing designed block brush terpolymers with dual concentric and lengthwise tunabilities The three primary strategies to synthesize molecular brushes include grafting from onto and through Grafting through is what is actually used because it allows for the greatest power to control I found the lecture to be very intriguing because it took the basic concepts that we have learned in chemistry about polymers and applied them to real world problems It is fascinating to see how manipulating nanoparticles in such small increments can change the results of outcomes so drastically This lecture was appropriate for first year chemistry students because although it did go a little more in depth than we could understand the overall concept and idea of how the nanoparticles effect everyday life was evident With this lecture first year students can decide whether or not they could see themselves contributing to the chemistry world as synthetic chemists