Our Story

Polymers & Plastic Engineering

Synthetic and natural polymers which play an essential and ubiquitous role in everyday life have seen the dawn of a new era in recent years, due to the ability to tune their functionality for use in a wide range of electronic applications, their formability, and recyclability permitting use for a multitude of structural applications, and their inert response necessary for use in the health and medical industry. We have strengths in topologically-complex, functional, nanostructured, and shape-memory and bio-polymers, conjugated oligomers, supra-molecular and block-copolymers, as well as negative Poisson’s ratio polymers and nematic liquid crystals. Research in polymers is focused on all aspects of synthesis, processing, recycling, characterizing, testing, modeling and computing, for advancing the understanding of process/structure/property relations needed for performance-specific design with polymers.

Polymers are an essential material that is widely used in a lot of daily life's products and good, and it is unimaginable to live without it

Polymers become the raw materials for products we now use every day, including synthetic clothing, fiberglass, plastic bags, nylon bearing, polyethylene cups, epoxy glue, silicone heart valves, Teflon-coated cookware, and our personal favorite, polymer-based paints

Research and Applications

FROM RUBBER TO SUSTAINABLE POLYMERS, It has wide range of applications

Polymer Chemistry

Design of new polymers has greatly benefited society and transformed all aspects of contemporary life, including rubber chemistry, transition metal-catalyzed polymerizations, ionic polymerizations, controlled radical polymerizations, emulsion polymerization, ring-opening polymerizations, and step-growth polymerizations.

Polymer Engineering

Through the use of our core capabilities and the creation of a broad base of economically viable polymer-related materials, processes, and products, our Polymer Engineering research aims to provide leadership technologies. We concentrate on the practical applications of scientific and engineering principles in order to produce novel materials and processing concepts and improve technical problem-solving skills in relation to the manufacturing and usage of polymers.

Energy / Batteries

Energy storage and energy generation are crucial technologies that will impact our daily lives and manufacturing processes in the future. With the advent of solar cells, rechargeable batteries, and fuel cells, renewable energy sources may be used more effectively.

Polymer Sustainability

Reimagining what polymers are made of and how they are used, re-used, and discarded in order to create new solutions for addressing sustainability. Polymer sustainability involves the creation of novel polymers and the enhancement of existing materials. Our researchers focus on renewable feedstocks, biodegradable polymers, recycling techniques, and the efficient use of plastics as key research areas.

Biomaterials

Develop biological materials design principles in living creatures and tissues and build bioinspired materials that help society in biomedicine, technology, and the environment. Comparative biomechanics and biorobotics using insights from locomotion of living animals; 3-D printed synthetic skin grafts for wound healing, drug delivery, and wet adhesives; orthopedic and dental biomaterials and bone biomineralization.

Polymer Science

The fields of composites, polymer blends, hybrid, and nanocomposite polymeric materials. To disclose the complexities of complex macromolecule systems, new generations of experimental methods and cutting-edge computational tools have been developed.

Wastewater

Nanocomposites

Extraction of Nanocellulose for Eco-Friendly Biocomposite Adsorbent for Wastewater Treatment

In the present study, nanocellulose was extracted from palm leaves to synthesize nanocellulose/chitosan nanocomposites for the removal of dyes from textile industrial wastewater. Nanocellulose is of interest in water purification technologies because of its high surface area and versatile surface chemistry.

Polymer

Optoelectronic

Conducting polymer thin film for optoelectronic devices applications

A crystalline and conjugated semiconductor thin film of poly(o-phenylene diamine-co-m-phenylene diamine) copolymer `{`PoPmP`}`TF with a thickness of 150 ± 3 nm is fabricated by physical vapor deposition technique (PVD).

Thermoelectric

Nanocomposites

One-Dimensional Nanocomposites Based on Polypyrrole-Carbon Nanotubes

This was achieved in the present work by using multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as a core template to direct the self-assembly of PPy and also to further enhance its TE performance.

Copolymer

Nanotubes

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes/aniline-o-anthranilic acid copolymer nanocomposite thin films

Carboxylic functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes/aniline-anthranilic acid copolymer composites with different amounts of MWCNTs were produced by the method of in situ oxidative polymerization. Thin films of the composites were fabricated by thermal evaporation method within the thickness range of 150–200 nm.

“For decades we comfortably lived in a “throw-away” culture until images of floating garbage raised public alarm. We need a cultural change in the way we produce, use and dispose of plastics. But how can scientists contribute to this change? And what is the future of polymers in general? “

Polymers

Different Forms of Polymer Composites

Just as nature has used biological polymers as the material of choice, mankind will chose polymeric materials as the choice material. Humans have progressed from the Stone Age, through the Bronze, Iron, and Steel Ages into its current age, the Age of Polymers. An age in which synthetic polymers are and will be the material of choice.

Polymeric materials have a vast potential for exciting new applications in the foreseeable future. Polymer uses are being developed in such diverse areas as: conduction and storage of electricity, heat and light, molecular based information storage and processing, molecular composites, unique separation membranes, revolutionary new forms of food processing and packaging, health, housing, and transportation. Indeed, polymers will play an increasingly important role in all aspects of your life.