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Speaker Information

Dr. Brent Sumerlin
George Bergen Butler Chair
Department of Chemistry 
University of Florida

Bio: Brent Sumerlin is the George Bergen Butler Chair in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida. Sumerlin is an associate editor for ACS Macro Letters and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, Journal of Polymer Science Innovation Award, Biomacromolecules/Macromolecules Young Investigator Award, the Hanwha-Total IUPAC Award, Mark Scholar Award, and the UF Doctoral Dissertation Mentoring/Advising Award. He is the Director of the Butler Polymer Research Laboratory and the UF Center for Macromolecular Science & Engineering. 

Abstract: Photoactivation for polymerization, depolymerization, and additive manufacturing
​​​​​​​Relying solely on mild ultraviolet or visible irradiation of thiocarbonylthio compounds, a new avenue to polymer-protein conjugates, semi-telechelic polymers, and well-defined ultra-high molecular weight (UHMW) block polymers has been developed. This photomediated polymerization approach reaches number-average molecular weights in excess of 8.00  106 g/mol with degrees of polymerization above 85,000, making these, to our knowledge, the highest molecular weight polymers ever achieved via a living polymerization. Ironically, the same chemistry that enables the synthesis of these polymers can also be harnessed to facilitate reversion to monomer (i.e., depolymerization), suggesting programmed polymer design can enable a low-energy approach to polymer life-cycle circularity. The utility of these techniques is further demonstrated in the area of soft-matter additive manufacturing.