Bryan Boudouris

POWER Lab Research Group

Twitter Page

Functional homopolymers and block polymers have attracted increasing attention as applications for these materials have begun to emerge in fields ranging from bioengineering to advanced energy systems. In particular, optoelectronically-active polymers have emerged as their own class of materials in recent years due to their promise of offering inexpensive, flexible, and lightweight alternatives to applications previously dominated by inorganic materials. Furthermore, chemically-selective homopolymers and block polymers can be utilized in detection and purification applications as well. Importantly, these types of functional polymers have optical, electronic, and chemical properties that may be tuned by using well-designed chemical synthesis to control precisely the chemical constituents, the distribution of functionality along the polymer backbone, the molecular weight, and the molecular weight distributions of the macromolecules.

In the Polymers for Optoelectronic and Widespread Energy Research (POWER) Laboratory, we examine how control of macromolecular design affects the all-important nanoscale structure of these materials. In turn, this provides a handle by which to improve the performance of a variety of thin film applications. Currently, we are examining five specific research thrusts that will utilize the advantages of functional homopolymers and block polymers for the fabrication of next generation organic electronic and advanced separations devices for enhanced energy, water, and homeland security applications.

1. The design and utilization of functional radical polymers for transparent, conducting polymer thin films.
2. The design of novel polymers, polymer-based nanoparticles, and inorganic nanoparticles for thermoelectric devices.
3. The fabrication of well-ordered, nanostructured organic non-volatile memory elements from nanostructured templates.
4. The synthesis and microstructural characterization of functional triblock polymers for enhanced water purification applications.
5. The fabrication of microstructured and nanostructured conducting polymers for advanced threat detection and homeland security applications.

Because we have the ability to change material properties by altering the molecular architecture, an iterative approach to system engineering is used. This allows for the direct correlation of structure-property relationships in five polymer-based projects which, in turn, will drive molecular design for the development of devices with high performance.

“Nanoporous Block Polymer Thin Films Functionalized with Bio-Inspired Ligands for the Efficient Capture of Heavy Metal Ions from Water,” J.L. Weidman, R.A. Mulvenna, B.W. Boudouris, W.A. Phillip, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 9, 19152-19160 (2017).

“Design of a Three-State Switchable Chromogenic Radical-based Moiety and Its Translation to Molecular Logic Systems,” S. Mukherjee, B.W. Boudouris, Mol. Syst. Des. Eng., 2, 159-164 (2017).

"Nanomanufacturing of High-Performance Hollow Fiber Nanofiltration Membranes by Coating Uniform Films from Block Polymer Solutions,"; Y. Zhang, R.A. Mulvenna, B.W. Boudouris, W.A. Phillip, J. Mater. Chem. A, 5, 3358-3370 (2017).

"Unusually Stable Hysteresis in the pH-Response of Poly(Acrylic Acid) Brushes Confined within Nanoporous Block Polymer Thin Films," J. L. Weidman, R. A. Mulvenna, B. W. Boudouris, W. A. Phillip, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 138, 7030-7039 (2016)

"Impact of the Addition of Redox-Active Salts on the Charge Transport Ability of Radical Polymer Thin Films," A. G. Baradwaj, S. H. Wong, J. S. Laster, A. J. Wingate, M. E. Hay, B. W. Boudouris, Macromolecules, 49, 4784-4791 (2016)

"Nanoscale Mapping of Dielectric Properties of Nanomaterials over Wide Frequency Bandwidths using Small Cantilevers," M. J. Cadena, S. H. Sung, B. W. Boudouris, R. Reifenberger, A. Raman, ACS Nano, 10, 4062-4071 (2016)

"Nanostructured Membranes from Triblock Polymer Precursors as High Capacity Copper Adsorbents," J. L. Weidman, R. A. Mulvenna, B. W. Boudouris, W. A. Phillip, Langmuir, 31, 1113-11123 (2015)

"Collection-limited Theory Interprets the Extra-ordinary Response of Single Semiconductor Organic Solar Cells," B. Ray, A. G. Baradwaj, M. R. Khan, B. W. Boudouris, M. A. Alam, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 112, 11193-11198 (2015)

"Tuning the Thermoelectric Properties of a Conducting Polymer through Blending with Open-shell Molecular Dopants," E. P. Tomlinson, M. J. Willmore, X. Zhu, S. W. A. Hilsmier, B. W. Boudouris, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 7, 18195-18200 (2015)

"Nanostructural Impact on the Macroscopic Device Performance of Polymer-based Ordered Ferroelectric Devices," S. H. Sung, B. W. Boudouris, ACS Macro Lett., 4, 293-297 (2015)