Polymer Chemistry seminars

Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar M. Yaghi examine the origins, development and applications of metal–organic frameworks. Robson follows the emergence of coordination polymers and the design of extended molecular structures from pre-organized building blocks, explaining the architectural ideas behind framework construction. Kitagawa describes how coordination chemistry led to porous materials and then to flexible crystalline structures. His discussion of soft porous crystals shows how frameworks can respond to external stimuli, opening and closing as they capture molecules, with implications for gas storage and separation. Yaghi considers how fundamental framework chemistry can connect to industrial and societal applications, including emerging uses of artificial intelligence. Together, the lectures show how complementary approaches to molecular design, porosity and responsive structure developed into a broad materials research field.

Understanding photochemical mechanisms can improve both plastic recycling and protection against light-induced damage. The seminar revisits acridinium-catalysed conversion of polystyrene to benzophenone, where reactive oxygen species explain the observed chemistry rather than the previously proposed pathway. It also examines unwanted flavour changes in champagne, tracing a light-induced defect to a dimeric radical-cation intermediate. These cases connect mechanistic evidence with process optimization, industrial scale-up and possible chemical protection strategies.

Two complementary approaches address polymer sustainability. Protein self-assembly, alone or with polysaccharides, can produce gels, emulsions, capsules and other functional materials for food, packaging or delivery. Selecting protein sources requires considering emissions, water use, eutrophication and animal welfare. A second presentation examines robust commodity plastics whose chemical stability frustrates recycling. It compares adding degradable sites after synthesis, incorporating cleavable comonomers during polymerization and directly breaking down existing polymers, while preserving useful material performance.

Living systems select one molecular handedness, making the origin of homochirality a central problem in understanding how life began. David Lacoste examines how this asymmetry can emerge in autocatalytic chemical networks when they contain sufficiently many chiral species and operate far from equilibrium. Polymerization greatly expands molecular diversity, raising the question of whether it can also generate and preserve a preference for one handedness. The talk develops this connection through an RNA reactor model, studying the conditions under which template-directed ligation and polymerization produce and maintain homochirality.