(7de) A Marriage of Convenience: Uniting Polymer Chemistry and Polymer Physics to Craft Advanced, Functional Materials

A Marriage of Convenience: Uniting Polymer
Chemistry and Polymer Physics to Craft Advanced, Functional Materials

Research
Interests:

Research Aims

 

i.                    
Development and application
of facile polymer synthesis methods
ii.                  
Fundamental studies of
self-assembly of functional nanoparticles and polymers
iii.                 
Production and
characterization of functional materials for energy and device applications

Motivation

Polymer
nanocomposites (PNCs) have been successfully implemented in a variety of disparate
areas such as aerospace, batteries, and biosensing. However, while there is a
wide diversity of available polymers and nano-sized filler materials, PNCs are under-utilized,
largely due to cost considerations. Developing PNCs into the commercial
materials of the future necessitates the design, synthesis, and
characterization of new, scalable combinations of polymers and nanosized
fillers, which requires a fundamental understanding of the underlying
physics that dictates matrix-filler interactions and the ability to modify the
chemistry that can tune these interactions. Development and application of
a versatile and facile polymer synthesis platform will allow for arbitrary
control of polymer material properties and chemical functionality, which will
allow us to tune matrix-filler interactions to control PNC properties and
create novel, useful materials in a rational way.

Future Directions

As faculty, I want to unite
polymer chemistry and polymer physics to create materials that solve real world
problems. Specifically, I want to marry the polymer chemistry tools I have
developed in my postdoctoral work with the soft matter physics training I
received during my Ph.D. and apply this combination to rationally design,
synthesize, characterize, and develop advanced materials with commercially
relevant properties. My research goals are threefold: (1) Develop and utilize
facile polymerization methods that allow for the synthesis of functional
polymers with a wide range of properties, (2) understand the self-assembly
properties of polymers and/or polymer grafted nanoparticles, and (3) combine (1) and (2) to tune any aspect of the
PNCs, allowing for complete control over properties (e.g., dielectric
constant, electrical conductivity) for a variety of energy applications.

In the short term, I
envision utilizing the polymer synthesis technique I developed in my
postdoctoral work, which allows us to easily create polyethers with a diverse
range of functionalities and architectures. I will apply these polymers to
develop an understanding of how different brush structures (e.g., block,
graft, hyperbranched) affect the dispersion of nanoparticles in a polymer
matrix, which affects the overall nanocomposite properties. I would also like
to use polyether-grafted nanoparticles in polymer electrolytes for battery
applications.  In this case, polyethers are a great choice as their dielectric
properties can be tuned through the pendant group and grafting high dielectric
polyether copolymers to the nanoparticles should further enhance the ionic
conductivity.

Longer term, I am
interested in the self-assembly of polymers of different architectures for
lithography. Currently, linear block-co-polymers which create lamellar
morphologies are the industry standard, but they are reaching their limit in
terms of feature size. By using the polymerization platform I developed in my
postdoctoral work, we could access different morphologies (e.g.,
gyroidal), architectures (e.g., bottle brush), and combinations of
monomer units (i.e., for high χ), which would allow us to achieve
industrially coveted domain spacing (i.e. sub 10 nm). I am also interested
in stimuli-responsive and hybrid materials for energy applications. Creating
materials for advanced applications necessitates individual components to act
synergistically to achieve the target property set. Combining conducting
polymers with metal and/or semiconducting nanoparticles in a rational way would
allow us to make improved materials for energy harvesting applications (e.g.,
solar cells, thermoelectric generators).

Research
Background:

Research Experience

Throughout my academic
career I have worked toward understanding and controlling the interactions
between polymers and nanoparticles. As an undergraduate and master’s student in
the Physics and Materials Science and Engineering departments at Drexel
University, I utilized functional polymer crystals to create Janus magnetic
nanoparticles that could be co-assembled with other nanoparticle types to
create hybrid nanomaterials. As a Ph.D. student in the Chemical and
Biomolecular Engineering department at the University of Pennsylvania, I
began working with polymer-grafted gold nanorods, which have unique optical
properties due to their anisotropic shape. I designed methods to assemble gold
nanorods permanently or reversibly through chemical (e.g., using peptides)
or temperature (e.g., using DNA) responsive triggers, which allowed me
to control optical properties of polymer films. I wanted to apply these ideas
to other anisotropic particles and other matrices, which led me to work with
both experimentalists and theorists in other fields. In this way, I have had
many fruitful collaborations across campus (materials science, physics,
chemistry) and across the world (Kyoto University (Japan), CNRS
(France)). The collaborations led me to want to explore more diverse material
systems; to do this, I felt I needed to increase my synthetic toolkit. As such,
I joined a polymer chemistry laboratory in the Chemical Engineering department
at the University of Texas at Austin. Here, I have learned various
polymerization techniques such as anionic polymerization and radical
polymerization. I have also developed a new facile polymerization method that
has allowed us to synthesize unique, functional polymers at controlled
molecular weights. I remain interested in polymer nanocomposites and I am
currently using the polymerization platform I developed to create new
nanocomposite materials.

Past Research Projects

Postdoctoral Project: “A New, Facile Approach for Epoxide
Polymerizations Utilizing Organoaluminum Initiators” Supervised by Prof.
Nathaniel A. Lynd in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University
of Texas at Austin, 2016-Present   

International Research Fellow Project: “Probing the Interaction of Gold
Nanorods and Organic Semiconductors” Supervised by Drs. Patrice Rannou,
Brigitte Pépin-Donat, and Didier Gasparutto in INAC at CNRS in
Grenoble, France, Summer-Fall 2013

NSF-EAPSI Fellow Project: “ATRP Initiated from Nanorod Surfaces”
Supervised by Prof. Kohji Ohno in the Institute for Chemical Research at
Kyoto University, Japan, Summer 2012

 Ph.D. Thesis: “Surface Chemistry Mediated Assembly of
Polymer-Grafted Nanorods in Solution and Polymer Matrices” Supervised
by Prof. Russell J. Composto in the Chemical and Biomolecular
Engineering Department at the University of Pennsylvania, 2009-2015

 M.S. Thesis: “Polymer Templated Janus Magnetic
Nanoparticles” Supervised by Prof. Christopher Y. Li in the
Materials Science and Engineering Department at Drexel University,
2007-2009

 

Funded Proposals

NSF EAPSI Fellowship

Labex-ARCANE Fellowship

NBIC International Research
Fellowship

Selected Publications

Robert
C. Ferrier, Jr.^†, Jennifer Imbrogno^†, Christina
G. Rodriguez^†, Malgorzata Chwatko, Paul W. Meyer, Nathaniel A. Lynd,
Four-fold Increase in Epoxide Polymerization Rate with Change of
Alkyl-substitution on mono-µ-oxo-dialuminum Initiators, Polymer Chemistry, 2017
(in press). † equal contribution

Christina
G. Rodriguez^†, Robert C. Ferrier, Jr.^†, Alysha
Helenic, Nathaniel A. Lynd, Ring Opening Polymerization of Epoxides: Facile
Pathway to Functional Polyethers via a Versatile Organoaluminum Initiator, Macromolecules,
2017, 50 (8), pp 3121 – 3130. † equal contribution

Robert
C. Ferrier, Jr. ^†, Jason Koski^†, Robert A.
Riggleman, Russell J. Composto, Engineering the Assembly of Gold Nanorods in
Polymer Matrices, Macromolecules, 2016, 49 (3), pp
1002-1015 † equal contribution

Elaine
Lee^†, Yu Xia^†, Robert C. Ferrier, Jr. ^†,
Hye-Na Kim, Mohamed A. Gharbi, Kathleen J. Stebe, Randall D. Kamien, Russell J.
Composto, Shu Yang. Fine Golden Rings: A Tunable Surface Plasmon Resonance from
Liquid Crystal Assembled Nanorods. Advanced Materials, 2016, 28,
pp 2731-2736 †equal contribution

Robert
C. Ferrier, Jr., Yun
Huang, Kohji Ohno, Russell J. Composto. Dispersion of Polymer Grafted,
Mesoscopic, Iron-oxide Rods in Polymer Matrices. Soft Matter, 2016,
12, pp 2550-2556

Robert
C. Ferrier, Jr.,
Guillaume Gines, Didier Gasparutto, Brigitte Pépin-Donat, Patrice Rannou,
Russell J. Composto. Tuning Optical Properties of Functionalized Gold Nanorods
through Controlled Interactions with Organic Semiconductors. Journal of
Physical Chemistry C, 2015, 119 (31), pp 17899-17909

Robert
C. Ferrier, Jr., Hyun-Su
Lee, Michael J. A. Hore, Matthew Caporizzo, David M. Eckmann, Russell J.
Composto. Gold Nanorod Linking to Control Plasmonic Properties in Solution and
Polymer Nanocomposites. Langmuir, 2014, 30 (7), pp 1906–1914

Teaching
Interests:

Teaching and Mentoring Experience

For two years at the
University of Pennsylvania, I was a teaching assistant (TA) and guest lecturer
for the undergraduate class Soft Matter in the Materials Science department. As
a TA, I prepared exam and homework questions, graded exams and homework, and
helped determine the final curve and final grades.  I participated in several
teaching workshops that helped expose me to a variety of different teaching
styles. I also had one of my lectures evaluated to help me understand my
strengths and weaknesses as a lecturer. Finally, mentorship is extremely
important to me and I take it very seriously. I have been extremely lucky to
have been able to nurture the scientific minds of a number of REU students,
undergraduate senior design students, and graduate students during my Ph.D. and
postdoctoral careers. Continuing to be a good mentor is something I look
forward to when I become faculty.

Teaching Interests

I have an academic
background that spans four different disciplines (chemistry, physics, materials
science, and chemical engineering) so I would be suited to teach a wide variety
of courses. Courses of particular interest would be: polymer physics, soft
matter, polymer chemistry, and thermodynamics.