Episode 23: Frontal polymerization controls materials properties

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Nancy Sottos, the Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair and head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois–Urbana Champaign (UIUC), and Justine Paul, a former student at UIUC who now holds a position at DuPont, about their work with frontal polymerization. By mimicking patterns in biological materials such as shells, their research group took a multidisciplinary approach to control crystalline patterning, which ultimately enabled them to control mechanical properties of polymers. By applying heat, they made slight changes in the chemical reactions to achieve specific crystalline patterns. This work was published in a recent issue of Nature.