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- All Subjects: Organic Chemistry
- Creators: Jin, Kailong
- Creators: Beerman, Eric Christopher
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Status: Published
Description
Due to its difficult nature, organic chemistry is receiving much research attention across the nation to develop more efficient and effective means to teach it. As part of that, Dr. Ian Gould at ASU is developing an online organic chemistry educational website that provides help to students, adapts to their responses, and collects data about their performance. This thesis creative project addresses the design and implementation of an input parser for organic chemistry reagent questions, to appear on his website. After students used the form to submit questions throughout the Spring 2013 semester in Dr. Gould's organic chemistry class, the data gathered from their usage was analyzed, and feedback was collected. The feedback obtained from students was positive, and suggested that the input parser accomplished the educational goals that it sought to meet.
ContributorsBeerman, Eric Christopher (Author) / Gould, Ian (Thesis director) / Wilkerson, Kelly (Committee member) / Mosca, Vince (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Polyolefins have dominated global polymer production for the past 60 years, revolutionizing fields of medicine, construction, travel, packaging, and many more. However, with steadily increasing polyolefin production each year and traditionally long polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene degradation times, estimated on the order of 500 years or more, a massive challenge arises with accumulating plastic waste. While the end-of-life of polyolefins previously manufactured must be addressed, incorporation of sustainability and circularity into future commodity plastic design at the molecular level offers an opportunity to decrease their negative effects on the environment going forward. Herein, several approaches are described which aim to address the need for polymeric materials while introducing a sustainable approach to their design, either through incorporation of biosynthesized polymers or degradable units. In the first project, polymer blends of two biodegradable polymers were studied, and compared to the same blends containing a graft copolymer compatibilizer comprised of the two homopolymer counterparts. The compatibilized blends were expected to have superior mechanical performance to the uncompatibilized blend and potentially offer industrially relevant benefits. While this was not achieved, valuable insight into the polymer blend interactions were gained. The idea of compatibilizing polymer blends was further explored with blends of PE and a cellulose derivative with the aid of a custom ABA triblock compatibilizing agent. It was discovered that the compatibilizer reinforced the polymer blend by providing mechanical strength at the cost of flexibility. To approach sustainability from a different perspective, several segmented copolymer series based on telechelic PE oligomers were then synthesized and analyzed. The segmented systems exhibited similar structure to high density PE (HDPE), retained similar mechanical and thermal properties to commercial HDPE, but contained degradable units throughout the polymer backbone. Several fundamental principles were explored through the segmented and chain-extended polyolefin architecture, including the influence of reactive linkage (amide vs. ester), random vs. alternating segment structure, and PE segment molecular weight. The effects of tailoring polymer structure on thermal, mechanical, and morphological properties are described herein. The relationships established from these experiments may further guide future polymer design and contribute toward more sustainable polyolefin manufacturing.
ContributorsArrington, Anastasia Sergeevna (Author) / Long, Timothy E. (Thesis advisor) / Jin, Kailong (Committee member) / Biegasiewicz, Kyle F. (Committee member) / Matson, John B. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Both molecular structure of macromolecular materials and subsequent processing of these materials dictate resulting material properties. In this work novel synthetic strategies combined with detailed analytical methodology reveal fundamental structure-processing-property relationships in thermoplastic polyesters, thermoplastic polyurethanes, covalently crosslinked acetal functionalized networks, and small molecule surfactants. 4,4’ dimethyloxybisbenzoate afforded a series of novel polyester structures, and the incorporation of this monomer both increased the Tg and decreased the crystallinity in cyclohexane dimethanol based polyesters. Solubility and dynamic light scattering experiments combined with oscillatory rheology techniques provided methodology to validate polyurethane extrusion in commercial polyurethanes. Acid catalyzed hydroxyl addition to vinyl ethers provided two families of acetal functionalized poly(ethylene glycol hydrogels). Stoichiometric control of binary thiol-acrylate polymerizations afforded hydrogels with both tunable mechanical properties and predictable degradation profiles. Following this work, a photoacid generator catalyzed cationic catalysis provided acetal functionalized organogels whose mechanical properties were predicted by excess vinyl ether monomers which underwent cationic polymerization under the same reaction conditions that yielded acetal functionalization. Time resolved FT-IR spectroscopy provided new understanding in hydroxyl vinyl ether reactions, where both hydroxyl addition to a vinyl ether and vinyl ether cationic polymerization occur concurrently. This work inspired research into new reactive systems for photobase generator applications. However, current photobase generator technologies proved incompatible for carbon-Michael reactions between acetoacetate and acrylate functionalities as a result of uncontrollable acrylate free radical polymerization. The fundamental knowledge and synthetic strategies afforded by these investigations were applied to small molecule surfactant systems for fire-fighting applications. Triethylsilyl-containing zwitterionic and cationic surfactants displayed surface tensions lower than hydrocarbon surfactants, but larger than siloxane-containing surfactants. For the first time, oscillatory rheology and polarized optical light imagine rheology highlighted shear-induced micelle alignment in triethylsilyl surfactants, which provided more stable foams than zwitterionic analogues. The knowledge gained from these investigations provided fundamental structure-processing-property relationships in small molecule surfactant solutions applied as fire-fighting foams. This discovery regarding the effect of self-assembled structures in foam solutions informs the design and analysis of next generation surfactants to replace fluorocarbon surfactants in fire-fighting foam applications.
ContributorsBrown, James Robert (Author) / Long, Timothy E (Thesis advisor) / Bortner, Michael J (Committee member) / Biegasiewicz, Kyle F (Committee member) / Jin, Kailong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Augmented Reality (AR) especially when used with mobile devices enables the creation of applications that can help students in chemistry learn anything from basic to more advanced concepts. In Chemistry specifically, the 3D representation of molecules and chemical structures is of vital importance to students and yet when printed in 2D as on textbooks and lecture notes it can be quite hard to understand those vital 3D concepts. ARsome Chemistry is an app that aims to utilize AR to display complex and simple molecules in 3D to actively teach students these concepts through quizzes and other features. The ARsome chemistry app uses image target recognition to allow students to hand-draw or print line angle structures or chemical formulas of molecules and then scan those targets to get 3D representation of molecules. Students can use their fingers and the touch screen to zoom, rotate, and highlight different portions of the molecule to gain a better understanding of the molecule's 3D structure. The ARsome chemistry app also features the ability to utilize image recognition to allow students to quiz themselves on drawing line-angle structures and show it to the camera for the app to check their work. The ARsome chemistry app is an accessible and cost-effective study aid platform for students for on demand, interactive, 3D representations of complex molecules.
ContributorsEvans, Brandon (Author) / LiKamWa, Robert (Thesis director) / Johnson, Mina (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2022-05