Polynorbornenes for Advanced Applications and Processes

Polynorbornenes have dramatically different properties and various applications depending on their chemical structures. The modular nature of norbornene-based systems provides a facile route toward synthesizing diverse polymeric materials, thus making them ideal materials for systematic structure-property investigations. Herein, their application as gas separation membranes and the correlation between their gas-transport properties and polymer structures will be investigated. Though many valuable correlations between gas-permeability and polynorbornene structure have been studied previously, many of these efforts have focused heavily on designing materials with various chemical structures to achieve high permeabilities. In contrast, the influence of molecular structure on: a) polynorbornene chain packing and ultimate gas separation performance, and b) material processibility have been less studied.

In this work, we have designed a series of fundamental studies that leverage careful monomer and catalyst design to investigate: 1) The influence of incorporation of fluorine content into vinyl-addition polynorbornene on gas separation and transportation mechanism; 2) The influence of block copolymer phase separation on gas separation performance, and the influence of catalyst induced backbone tacticity and corresponding chain packing on gas separation performance; 3) The influence of substituents on the glass transition temperature and decomposition temperature of APNBs, and their potential melt-processibility.