This career award presents a new synthetic approach to creating new polymer brush compositions and architectures using the unique potential that organometallic catalysts have recently offered for generating wide varieties of brushes from tethered initiators. The primary object of this effort is to synthesize well-defined stiff brushes in spherical and planar geometries with a priori determination of grafting density and chain length and to exploit these controlled brush structures to establish, experimentally, the scaling relations for wormlike brushes. The PI will further capitalize on the versatility afforded by living organometallic polymerizations catalysts to design and synthesize block co-polymer brushes that combine polyelectrolyte blocks with hydrophobic and uncharged hydrophillic blocks. The use of polyisocyanates as model semiflexible polymers will also lead to the synthesis of chiral isocyanate brushes that will be studied to ascertain the importance of chain packing on chiral induction. The PI will also prepare brushes on complex geometries to probe the utility of this methodology in preparing polymeric nanostructures. For example, polymers will be grown on the interior surfaces of hollow cylinders in predetermined patters on external surfaces.
Teaching activities will focus on mentoring undergraduates in the context of a research group. A new course is also proposed, "The Art of Teaching Science" an interdisciplinary course designed to serve two constituencies, those of the scientist and the citizen. The scientists are those who desire careers in technical fields and need thorough grounding in technical knowledge and skills: scientists are learning in order to do science. The citizen, on the other hand, studies to learn about science. The course will have two goals: development of a series of lecture demonstrations in the areas of elementary chemistry and materials science; and the development of a curriculum for a second new lecture course called "Paper or Plastic? Materials Choices in Everyday Life". This course will serve as a springboard for several outreach activities. Students will be encouraged to present the demonstrations in visits to high schools. The materials developed by the class will also form the basis for a short course to be offered to teachers at the high school and college level.
