BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Memento EPFL// BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Controlling Reactivity and Selectivity for the Discovery of Sustai nable Thermoplastics DTSTART:20260401T161500 DTEND:20260401T171500 DTSTAMP:20260511T212701Z UID:dabaf50a1b654b1e5d1956137c03a25b9dc7698f2f20db18b5897335 CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars DESCRIPTION:Prof. Frank A. Leibfarth\nDepartment of Chemistry\, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\nPlastics are the largest synthetic cons umer product in the world\, with an annual production of over 360 million metric tons annually. Despite the structural diversity enabled by modern a dvances in polymer synthesis\, greater than 60% of world plastic productio n remains dominated by polyolefins. These high-volume\, low-cost engineeri ng thermoplastics are made from a small sub-set of petroleum derived monom ers and demonstrate diverse thermomechanical properties\, attractive chemi cal resistance\, and excellent processability. Creating sustainable materi als that compete with the performance and value proposition of polyolefins is a grand challenge for the field of polymer science. The goal of resear ch in the Leibfarth group is to control develop synthetic methods that tra nsform readily available starting materials into functional and sustainabl e thermoplastics with molecular-level precision. This goal informs our two complementary approaches that seek to 1) leverage chemo- and regioselecti ve C–H functionalization of polyolefins to enhance the properties of the se venerable materials and 2) develop stereoselective polymerization metho ds that engender emergent polymer properties from simple chemical building blocks. These concepts have resulted in platform synthetic methods that e nhance the thermomechanical\, adhesion\, and transport properties of polym eric materials while also uncovering mechanistic insights that broadly inf orm synthetic method development. \n  LOCATION:ELA 1 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==ELA%201 STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR