Directed Energy Effects on Chemical Transformations Relevant to Polymerizations
Open Access
- Author:
- Wiencek, Richard
- Graduate Program:
- Chemistry
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- March 06, 2020
- Committee Members:
- Michael Anthony Hickner, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Elizabeth A Elacqua, Committee Member
Lauren Dell Zarzar, Committee Member
Scott A Showalter, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- Polymerization
Microwave Reactions
Heating Profile
Curing - Abstract:
- Common polymerization reactions can take hours to days of reaction time in refluxing solvent to build sufficient molecular weight. To overcome these slow reaction kinetics and to produce materials with useful properties, some non-traditional methods have been implemented to decrease the required reaction times, while not sacrificing yield or chemical fidelity. One of these rapid synthesis methods is microwave-induced heating. Microwave reactors produce a magnetic and electric field which can cause superheating effects on microwave absorbing molecules and particles and thus accelerate polymerizations. These microwave reactions can have heating similar to traditional reactions in minutes rather than hours with the proper monomer and solvent selection. Microwaves have three fundamental modes of action, ionic, dipole, and magnetic, that can be exploited to make traditional reactions occur faster with little impact on yield. The main focus of this work identified what chemistries can be superheated, and what solvents and additives can be used to achieve high heating in short amounts of time. To further expand on another fast polymerization method, laser photopolymerization (including photothermal effects) can also be used to obtain extreme heating for rapid chemical reactions. An interesting facet of this method is that when deployed under specific circumstances the photochemical reaction or heating will only occur at the laser’s focal point which can lead to the development of 2D and 3D polymer structures that can be deposited with micrometer precision. Both methods have the potential to lead to novel, rapid polymerization techniques as well as functional polymers not possible by conventional methods, due to the origin of the directed energy of these techniques and rapid heating. This work mainly focuses on laying the foundation for laser induced polymerizations as well as monomer selection for polymerizations in microwave reactors and the capability to develop polymers and composite materials in significantly less time than traditional methods