Nicola Migliore brilliantly defended his PhD thesis (last October, but I did not have the time to update the website yet). Here below you can find the link to the papers we published from his excellent work, and one more is expected to follow soon enough.
Congratulations to Nicola, the RaffaLab is proud of you! :)
In his first paper, Nicola explored the solution properties of amphiphilic random copolymers of styrene and acrylic (or methacrylic) acid, prepared by ATRP. These are potentially interesting rheology modifiers and emulsifiers. This study represent a continuaiton of my previous work on analogous block copolymers. We wanted to see what changes in the aggregation and properties when going from block to random distribution of monomers.
The second work is described in a previous post.
The third paper comes from a visiting period that Nicola spent in Florida, in the group of Prof. Brent Sumerlin, working of RAFT polymerization of heteroaromatic monomers. This, combined with a collaboraiton with the University of Pisa, brought this work on amphiphilic polymers with responsive properties, that can be used to make composite materials with potential applications as chemisensors.
The fourth paper shows some novel amphiphilic polymers similar to styrene maleic anhydride polymers (SMA), that are polymers known for many years, but based on replacing styrene with a potentially bio-based alternative, to make them more sustainable. These present also low toxicity, making them promising for biomedical applications.
All in all, different ideas for new amphiphilic polymers, with a variety of potential applications, are presented in this thesis. Some insight on structure-properties relationships are given, and non-trivial synthetic porcedures are presented.
I am quite content with the final outcome, and I am glad that my first PhD student completed his journey succesfully.
