Dr. Georgy Filonenko (TU Delft) will visit Sissi de Beer and give a lecture for the Molecules Centre titled:
Molecular mechanochemistry for polymer imaging - seeing strains, stresses and material damage
Abstract:
The lifecycle of polymer materials is full of stress - static, dynamic or residual, it affects their bulk and surfaces, impacts the polymer performance. Stress tolerance defines failure resistance and in case of thin films stresses are the main reason for delamination and defect formation. Few optical and spectroscopic methods for estimating stresses exist and they generally reflect macroscopic alignment, density or other physical aspects of the sample. In our work we use molecular events and chemical reactions to track stresses. Since our sensory signal originates on the level of molecules we can perform structural studies using these technique. Being able to label any discrete location within the polymer, we could also examining the effects which topology has on stress perception. Ultimately, chemistry is our main tool in manipulating polymers and with current techniques we can start examining its molecular manifestations within real macroscopic materials.