News
New paper out – an easy route for polymer electrodeposition (EPoN)
In our latest paper on EPoN, Colin, Jin, Amira et al. show that you can electrodeposit uniform and tunable polymer-network thin films and coatings with simple and accessible free-radical polymerization followed by a one-step functionalization to attach the electrochemical crosslinker. We also show that the electrodeposition functions for damage repair in coatings, and can be stopped part way with uniform thickness and high permeability, and restarted to reach the final self-limiting thickness and permeability. Great job everyone, this was a true team effort!
Materials Chemistry Frontiers 2026, DOI: 10.1039/D6QM00261G
Tyler and Jianyu successfully defend their MS theses
Congratulations to Jianyu and Tyler for successfully defending their Master of Science thesis! Jianyu researched the effects of sulfonation in crosslinked triblock terpolymer membranes on water uptake, nanostructure retention, and proton conductivity. Tyler's MS research identified processing-structure relationships in phase-inverted hierarchically porous carbon fibers and their electrothermal properties.
Wenlu’s paper on reactive EPoN featured in 2025 Most Popular Articles of JMC-A
Wenlu's paper on the Electrodeposition of reactive Polymer Networks (reactive EPoN) is featured as one of the 50 most popular articles in 2025 in the RSC Journal of Materials Chemistry A (themed issue). Congrats Wenlu!
Yuanzhi successfully defended his PhD thesis
Congrats, Yuanzhi!
Anton successfully defended his PhD thesis
Congrats, Anton!!!
Wenlu successfully defends her Ph.D. thesis
CONGRATS WENLU!
Congrats Amira for receiving an ACS Undergraduate Award in Organic Chemistry
Great job and well deserved, Amira!
Congrats Amira for your Honors Thesis!
Amira successfully defended her Chemistry Honors Thesis on Monday, congratulations!
Congrats Master Karl!
Congratulations to Karl for successfully defending his MS thesis on the computational and experimental elucidation of the EPoN growth!
Wenlu and Zhaoyi publish first papers on EPoN
Congratulations to Wenlu and Zhaoyi for each publishing a first-author paper on our Electrodeposition of Polymer Networks (EPoN), a novel fabrication mechanism for ultrathin (10-100s nm) polymer coatings that are conformal even on porous and non-planar materials.
Wenlu describes the single-component oxidative EPoN using phenol as polymer end groups in Advanced Materials
Zhaoyi describes the reductive EPoN of polymers with bromoisobutyrate end groups and a complementary small-molecule crosslinker in RSC Applied Polymers