News
Fresh paper in Polymer: polynorbornenes with carbocyclic substituents as porous materials
Our team has worked long on new type of polynorbornenes bearing rigid carbocyclic substituents in side chains. The results were published in Polymer journal.

Four sets of polymers from norbornene-type monomers with various carbocyclic groups were prepared to perform the structure-property study and to evaluate the effect of main- and side-chains on the porosity of resultant polymers.The obtained polymers exhibited large BET surface areas (up to 740 m2/g), while CO2 and H2 uptake reached 3.0 and 0.18 mmol/g, correspondingly. The combination of comparatively simple synthesis, high porosity and solubility in organic solvents can be considered as a key advantage of the synthesized polymers.

We're preparing another set of results on the topic. In the meantime we congratulate Maxim Zotkin on his first research paper!
New award: Moscow government prizes for young scientists
Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin awards Dmitry and our colleagues from TIPS RAS
On the 9th February, on the day of Russian Sciences, Dmitry Alentiev and Alyona Wozniak from our lab together with our colleague Andrey Asachenko were given the Prize of Moscow government.

The award was presented for the development of approaches to the synthesis of functional polynorbornenes, promising materials for membrane gas separation. That has become the result of the last 5 years of dedication to organometalic chemistry, catalysis and polymerization procedures. NHC-Pd complexes developed by Andrey Asachenko and his team made synthesis of new specific polynorbornenes simplier than ever. Alyona Wozniak's effort was focused on the assesment of catalytic activity of Pd-NHC complexes in norbornenes polymerization. A wide set of polymers based on 5-ethylydene-2-norbornene and other bifunctional monomers was obtained due to extraordinary selectivity of the new catalysts. That opened the way to a new series of polynorbornenes synthesized as a result of various post-modifications. With the help of such effective catalysts Dmitry Alentiev managed to obrain new silicon containing polynorbornenes being one of the attractive membrane materials to date.

We're proud of our colleagues.
New publication: single-component Pd-catalysts for addition polymerizationof norbornene derivatives
Our team has developed new generation of single component catalysts for vinyl-addition polymerization of norbornenes. The paper was published in ACS Catalysis.

We have shown that cationic Pd-complexes with N-heterocyclic carbene ligands and weak coordinating anion ligands are highly efficient single-component catalysts for polymerization of both norbornene and various substituted norbornenes. These complexes, being stable in the solid state and in solutions, have exhibited several important features as VAP catalysts. They are capable of catalyzing VAP of norbornenes in air and are tolerant to functional groups. The complexes have shown high catalytic activity and have allowed polymerizing monomers at very low catalyst loadings, as low as 2 ppm.

Read more in the full paper in ACS Catalysis

The work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation and the State Program of TIPS RAS.
Membranes-2022 conference
Serious scientists at the conference
Last week Dmitriy, Fedor, Max and Andrey attended a major meeting of specialists in membrane science "Membranes-2022". The conference took place in Tula region on 26-29th September.

Dmitry had oral presentation about promising membrane materials for CO2 separation based on vinyl/addition polynorbornenes bearing ester fragments in side chain. The presentation was based on Dmitry's recent paper in Journal of Membrane science.

Max also had oral presentation. His recent progress in synthesis of norbornene-based polymers with carbocyclic substituents in side chain gain much attention. The material of Max's presentation is going to be published soon.

Fedor was lucky to have a poster presentation (which was completed successfully few hours before the departure to the conference). His significant effort on membrane materials based on organosilicon derivatives of 5-norbornene-2-methanol was recently published in Polymer.

Andrey presented the results he obtained in the Kurnakov Institute of General and inorganic chemistry during his course work.

We believe the guys had a good time, as the picture shows :)
Lab seminar
Marina Guseva presents her recent research progress
On June 17th our team gathered all together for the annual seminar. Main focus of the meeting laid in the recent research progress of our young collaborators.

Marina Guseva and her student Petr presented new results on exo-selective synthesis of norbornene derivatives via hydrosylilation reaction. Major questions touched the catalysts choice and possible mechanism of the reaction. Fedor Andreyanov and his younger colleague Artem reported synthesis and properties of new polymers derived from 5-norbornene-2-methanol. Maxim Zotkin shared his progress in the synthesis of norbornene derivatives bearing carbocyclic substituents - promising class of membrane materials. Ivan Nazarov and his students presented huge synthetical work on optically active norbornene derivatives and their polymerization in the presence of optically active catalysts. Vsevolod Zhigarev completed the presenters team with recent results on olefin cross metathesis reaction and synthesis of multiblock copolymers.

We're proud of our young researchers and believe you'll see the results of their effort in upcoming papers.
New PhD in our lab
On May 19th, our team member Gleb Karpov presented his research "Synthesis of fluorine-containing norbornene derivatives and its polymerization". The main focus of the investigation was put in the synthesis of tricyclononenes bearing different organofluorune fragments. The challenging task of obtaining soluble high-molecular weight metathesis polymers was successfully reached. Classical step to the synthesis of vinyl/addition fluoropolymers wasn't that easy in this case though. However, a new vinyl/addition polynorbornene bearing perfluorophenyl groups in side chains was prepared. Moreover, the search for active Pd-based catalytic systems for the polymerization led Gleb to revealing a new type of catalysts based on Pd(0) complexes activated by organic cocatalyst. New approach inspired by organic Pd-catalyzed coupling reaction of aryl (pseudo)halides consisted a solid part of PhD thesis presented by Gleb. Gas transport and dielectric properties of the polymers were studied. The analysis of the data obtained helped us establish new correlations between polymer structure and its properties.

Well done Gleb!
New article in Journal of membrane science
Congrats to Dmitriy Alentiev and the team! Our article on using polynorbornenes bearing cellosolve moitities for membrane gas separation was publishedon April 15th. The team revealed new relationships between polymer structure and its gas transport properties. In details, it was shown that cellosolve moieties provide facilitated transport of CO2 while ether fragments improve permeability of gaseous hydrocarbons

It took a solid time to gain the desired result, but you've made it. Great job!

To find out more about the article click the link .

Alexander Morontsev defended his PhD Thesis
2nd PhD thesis defended by our team members during 2021.
On December 2nd, Alexander presented his research "Synthesis and Post-Modification of the Backbone of Metathesis Silicon-Substituted Polynorbornenes". The research was devoted to the development of methods for modifying double bonds of the mainchains of silicon-substituted polynorbornenes by polymer analogous reactions (such as epoxidation and gem-difluorocyclopropanation, interchain reaction of macromolecular cross-metathesis with polydienes and heterochain silicon-containing polyenes). Moreover, gas transport, thermal and other properties of the obtained polymers were examined.

It's noteworthy that it's the 2nd PhD thesis defended in less than a year by our team members.

Congrats Dr Moronthsev!

December 22th / 2021
Overcoming COVID-19: all the researchers of our lab got vaccinated
100% of our team members are vaccinated.
Nothing is better than being safe these days. Remote work ain't the best option for a scientist. We keep going with our research having all the crew well defended against the virus.
The first one to lead the team to the total vaccination was Mr. Shorunov. It took us less than a year to have all the team vaccinated.


Author: Gleb Karpov
Фотография: Unspalsh

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