IMX Talks - Viscoelasticity and Applications of Self-Healing Polymers
Event details
| Date | 18.09.2025 |
| Hour | 16:00 › 17:00 |
| Speaker | Dr. Laura Porath from ESPCI, Paris, France |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
plastics. The first part of the talk will focus on dynamic polymer networks (specifically vitrimers) which are
exciting for their recyclability. By designing the polymer architecture of PDMS or polyacrylate vitrimers, the
viscoelastic behavior was tuned when both fast and slow crosslinkers were mixed into a network. When the fast
and slow crosslinkers (four orders of magnitude difference in relaxation time) were mixed in an end-crosslinked
polymer network, a single relaxation time was observed, but two modes of relaxation were identified when the
polymer was statistically crosslinked and could “feel” both the fast and slow bond exchange along a single
polymer chain.
Based on these PDMS vitrimers, we also invented and filed a patent for a novel ultra-thin polymer coating. The
PDMS gel network can be applied to various surfaces (glass, metals, silicon) at heights of only 10 nanometers and
still achieve self-healing from pinholes and cuts, prevent delamination of the coating, and promote dropwise
condensation for multiple weeks. The PDMS coating is superhydrophobic, transparent, and adaptable to rough
or curved surfaces, making it ideal for multiple applications from the energy sector in covering solar panels or
steam power plant machines, to the commercial sector for cars or as screen protectors. These two stories show
how tunability in chemistry can lead to rheological design and broader applications for the field of soft polymer
materials.
Bio: Dr. Laura Porath received a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Chicago in 2017. She then pursued
a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with Professor Chris
Evans, where she specialized in the rheology of vitrimers, or dynamic covalent polymer networks. In Fall of 2022,
she began a postdoctoral position in the lab of Professor Jan Vermant at ETH in Zurich to study the rheological
effect of active particles on soft viscoelastic gel environments. She also collaborated with Dr. Eleonora Secchi on
the study of bacterial biofilms as soft materials, including their rheological characterization. Ellie currently holds
a postdoctoral position at the ESPCI in Paris in collaboration with L’Oréal where she designs chemically relevant
artificial skin for better understanding the sensation of spreading on micrometric rough surfaces.
Links
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Prof. Holger Frauenrath
Contact
- Prof. Holger Frauenrath