About the Seminar: 

Polymer topology is critical for the development of new materials for novel applications. Diels-Alder (DA) chemistry is becoming increasing popular due to its simplicity and efficiency. It also imparts a thermo-responsive aspect, which can allow for selective degradation of materials. This can be utilized to explore kinetic growth mechanisms or as a stimulus to induce topological change for application purposes. This work will describe the development of several different strategies of incorporation of DA chemistry within polymeric materials, including functional surfaces and prepolymers, initiators, inimers and crosslinkers and post-polymerization modification. Potential applications range from dynamic surface treatments to rehealable coatings to rheological modifiers to debondable adhesives.

About the Speaker:

Prof. Costanzo graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2001 with a BS in Chemistry. As an undergraduate, he worked for Prof. Krzysztof Matyjaszewski for three years preparing materials via Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization. He then received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Timothy Patten at University of California at Davis, where he focused upon polymer and nanoparticle synthesis. He was awarded a National Research Council Postdoctoral fellowship at the Army Research Laboratory. As a post-doc, he worked in the weapons and materials division developing new materials for wide range of applications. He joined California Polytechnic State University in 2007 and is currently a Professor. His research focuses upon the development of structure-property relationships by exploiting simple and efficient methodology, such as Diels-Alder chemistry, to create dynamic and stimuli-responsive materials.