Title: Ionic Liquid-containing Charged Block Copolymer Membranes
Date: Tuesday, February 23
Time: 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Room: 137, NIA
Speaker: Evan Margaretta
Abstract: Ion-containing block copolymers represent an exciting area of research owing to their immense design versatility and favorable properties for applications such as nonviral gene delivery, water purification, and fuel cells. Similarly, ionic liquids possess many attractive qualities such as negligible vapor pressure and inherent conductivity. Incorporating ionic liquids into ion-containing block copolymers marries the best qualities of both components, enabling applications like electromechanical transduction and gas separation. Towards this goal, we employed controlled polymerization techniques to obtain ABA triblock architecture. Selective modification of the central block yielded ionic phases which then served as hosts for incorporated ionic liquid. This presentation details the structure-morphology-property relationships of these ionic liquid-containing block copolymers.
Bio: Evan Margaretta first experienced scientific research in his home state of New Jersey under the supervision of Prof. Lei Yu at Rowan University, investigating the chemical synthesis of polyaniline in an ionic liquid medium. The realization that “everything is made of something” sparked an interest in polymer structure-property relationships that continues to this day. Upon graduating with his BS in Chemistry from Rowan in 2011, Evan continued his studies under Prof. Timothy Long in the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Tech where he is currently a PhD candidate researching the effects of ionic liquid incorporation into ion-containing block copolymers.