Organic Chemistry Seminar: Dr. Diesendruck, Israel Institute of Technology
Organic Chemistry Seminar: Dr. Diesendruck, Israel Institute of Technology (Host: Yan Xia)
About the Seminar
"Addressing Mechanochemistry with Intramolecular Cross-links"
Understanding how materials are affected by mechanical stress is central for developing novel and robust materials with extended lifetimes. In this regard, the most fundamental process is the effect of mechanical stress on molecules, where mechanical energy is transduced into chemical energy by scission of chemical bonds, a process called mechanochemistry. While mechanochemical reactions have been abundantly studied, the use of polymer architecture as a motif for polymer mechanics has been mostly unexplored. In this talk, I describe the use of intramolecular cross-links to reinforce the molecular structure and reduce fragmentation due to mechanochemistry. A systematic study changing molecular weights as well as cross-linker density, strength, length and positioning was carried out to understand how each of these parameters affects the kinetics of the mechanochemical reactions. In addition, with the use of supramolecular bonds, reversible mechanical unfolding and thermal refolding was demonstrated, effectively creating synthetic entropic springs.
About the Speaker
Dr. Diesendruck received his B.Sc. in analytical and environmental chemistry from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. After serving in the Israel Navy and working a few years at Chemada Fine Chemicals (ICL), he returned to BGU to complete a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in organometallic chemistry with Prof. N. Gabriel Lemcoff. Dr. Diesendruck was a postdoctoral fellow in materials chemistry at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working in the Autonomous Materials Systems group with Prof. Jeffrey S. Moore. In 2014, he joined the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and where he was recently promoted to Associate Professor.