IMX Colloquium - How to unlock the industrial potential of reprocessable thermosets through dynamic covalent chemistry

Dynamic covalent chemistry (DCC) allows the development of thermally (re)processable and recyclable polymer networks, which is a highly attractive feature for new generations of thermoset materials and composite materials.

However, despite a huge surge in academic interest where soon almost any imaginable DCC platform may have been applied in a thermoset formulation, dynamic or reversible covalent polymer networks have so far found only few industrial applications. This lecture will provide a perspective on the main strategies for the application of DCC in the design and development of bulk thermoset materials and presents some of the key hurdles for their industrial implementation.

The polymer design strategies and associated chemistries will be placed into the perspective of how ‘close to market’ their development pathway is, thus providing a roadmap to achieve high-volume breakthrough applications.

Besides a general outline, this presentation will highlight a number of our actual research efforts to overcome remaining limitations for the industrial implementation of this new generation of reprocessable thermoset materials, mainly based on smart chemical design.1-7

[1] Stephan Maes, Nezha Badi, Johan M. Winne, Filip E. Du Prez, Nat. Rev. Chem., 9, 144-158 (2025)
[2] Filip Van Lijsebetten, Stephan Maes, Johan M. Winne, Filip E. Du Prez, Chem. Sci. 15, 7061-7071 (2024).
[3] Kamil Unal, Diederick Maes, Lucas Stricker, Lucie Imbernon, Klaus Lorenz, Filip Du Prez, Johan Winne, ACS Appl. Polym. Mater., 6, 2604-2615 (2024).
[4] Filip Van Lijsebetten, Tim Maiheu, Johan M. Winne, Filip E. Du Prez, Adv. Mater., 35, 2300802 (2023).
[5] Filip Van Lijsebetten, Johan M. Winne, and Filip E. Du Prez, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. e202113872 (2022)
[6] Christian Taplan, Marc Guerre, Filip E. Du Prez, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 143, 9140–9150 (2021)
[7] Filip Van Lijsebetten, Johan M. Winne, Filip E. Du Prez, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 143, 15834−15844 (2021)
Industrial

Bio: Filip Du Prez finished his PhD research in 1996 on the topic of interpenetrating polymer networks. After research stays in Lehigh University (USA) and Montpellier (France), he became in 1999 head of the Polymer Chemistry Research group of Ghent University in Belgium with around 20 researchers focusing on three main topics:
1) ‘Sequence defined polymers; 2) ‘Dynamic and circular thermoset materials’; 3) ‘Giving renewable polymers functionality’.
In 2021, he received a prestigious ERC advanced grant from the European commission for research on covalent adaptable networks and the introduction of sequence defined macromolecules in a material context. He published around 400 reviewed publications, more than 10 book chapters, 20 patent applications and received several awards including the Medema award in 2025.
Since 2018, he is associate editor for the RSC-journal Polymer Chemistry. In 2021 he became RSC fellow and since 2023, he is member of the Royal Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts.