Matyjaszewski Intl. Symp. on Green Chemistry & Polymers

MATYJASZEWSKI INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

On Green Chemistry & Polymers & their Application for Sustainable Development (5th Intl. Symp.)

Krzysztof_Matyjaszewski
Bio | CV | Publications

This major symposium is in honour of the distinguished work and lifetime achievements of Professor Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, a very well-known professional with deep impact on green chemistry and polymers science and their application for sustainable development.

Professor Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, 74, was educated at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Lodz at the Center for Molecular and Macromolecular Studies, the leading Polish research center for higher education and research. After his postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Florida and Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (Sorbonne) in Paris, in 1985, he moved to Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, USA. He currently holds a position as the J.C. Warner University Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Chemistry and serves as Director of the Center for Macromolecular Engineering. He also holds courtesy appointments at the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical Engineering at CMU, as an adjunct professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and Lodz University of Technology in Poland.

Professor Matyjaszewski is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, US National Academy of Engineering, European, Hungarian, Georgian, Polish, and Australian Academies of Science; a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Fellow of the American Chemical Society, International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); and an Honorary Fellow of Polish, Israel and Chinese Chemical Societies. He also serves as CNRS Ambassador in Chemical Sciences.

Matyjaszewski has received numerous international awards, including the 2023 National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences, 2021 Grand Prix de la Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie, France; 2018 Herman Mark Medal, Austrian Polymer Society; 2017 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry, 2015 International Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, 2014 Award of National Institute of Materials Science, Japan, 2013 Inaugural AkzoNobel North American Science Award, 2011 Dannie-Heineman Prize from Göttingen Academy of Sciences, 2011 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, 2011 Japanese Polymer Science Society Award, 2010 Gutenberg Award from University of Mainz, Germany, and 2009 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. He has been recognized by the American Chemical Society by the 2020 Paul Flory Polymer Educational Award, the 2021 William H. Nichols Medal Award (NY section of ACS), the 2019 Chemistry of Materials Award, the 2011 Applied Polymer Science Award, the 2002 Polymer Chemistry Award and the 1995 Carl Marvel Creative Polymer Chemistry Award. He also received the 2012 Maria Sklodowska Curie Medal from the Polish Chemical Society and the 2004 Prize from the Foundation of Polish Science. He holds thirteen honorary degrees from the University of Ghent, Belgium, the Russian Academy of Sciences, Lodz Polytechnic, Poland, l’Institut Polytechnique, Toulouse, France, University of Athens, Greece, Pusan National University, South Korea, Université P. & M. Curie, Sorbonne, Paris, France, Technion, Israel, Poznan University, Poland, Padova University, Italy, Coimbra University, Portugal, University of Crete, Greece and Technical University of Rzeszow, Poland.

He served as President of the Pacific Polymer Federation (2013-2015). He also served as the Editor-in-Chief of "Progress in Polymer Science" (1999-2021, and increased its impact factor from IF=3 to 31) and served as the co-editor-in-chief of “Polymer Science: A Comprehensive Reference” (Elsevier, 10 Volume,2012), co-editor of “Macromolecular Engineering” (Wiley-VCH, 4 volume 1st Edition, 2007 and 5 volumes 2nd Edition, 2022) and serves on the editorial boards of fifteen other chemistry journals. Matyjaszewski is a very efficient communicator, disseminating his science through over 1300 peer-reviewed research publications, over 100 book chapters, and 25 books, cumulating more than 203,000 citations and corresponding to a "h-index" of 214 (Google Scholar, December 2024) with an average citations annual rate larger than 9,000 over the past 5 years. He also delivered >1500 presentations at international meetings, at universities and in industry. He has 72 US patents issued on ATRP, and over 150 original and derived international patents. Search for “atom transfer radical polymerization” using Google Patents on 08.16.2024 listed more than 150 thousand patents and patent applications worldwide. The term ATRP has been used in over 3,000 issued US patents; SciFinder Scholar indicates that 60 industrial corporations each have more than 10 patents employing the term ATRP. Matyjaszewski interacts effectively to facilitate the transfer of technology to industry. He formed two industrial consortia, in which 60 companies from the U.S., Mexico, South Africa, Japan, China, South Korea, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, UK, and Switzerland have participated. ATRP technology developed by Matyjaszewski has been licensed to seventeen international companies, with the production of the first polymers based on ATRP in Japan, Europe, and the USA in 2004.

Matyjaszewski is a successful educator, and his group at CMU has comprised over 150 postdoctoral fellows and over 100 graduate and visiting students. During the Covid 19 lab lockdown (May-July 2020) Matyjaszewski's group organized a series of 20 webinars with 3000 participants via zoom and YouTube. Recently, for his educational efforts, he received the 2020 Paul Flory Polymer Education Award from ACS.

Matyjaszewski developed controlled radical and ionic polymerization techniques used to produce a multitude of novel, well-defined polymers, copolymers and hybrid/bioconjugate materials designed for use in existing and developing applications. In particular, his research is directed to the development of a robust and versatile atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and other controlled polymerization techniques and their application to create new materials.

Every year more than 1,000 papers per year have been published during the past ten years using the term ATRP. The main reason for this explosive development is the simplicity of ATRP, and the unusual power to prepare tailor-made macromolecules for many special applications, making it attractive for industrial practice. ATRP has been used in essentially every polymer laboratory in the world, not only by chemists but also by physicists, due to its broad scope and robustness.

Not only have all his scientific breakthroughs been highly cited, but also many chemists and materials scientists have built upon them. This is especially visible in the area of bioconjugates and organic/inorganic hybrids. Previously, it was not possible to construct well-defined hybrids comprising synthetic polymers and biomolecules. ATRP enabled linking "smart" stimuli-responsive polymers with proteins, enzymes, and also with DNA or exosomes. His recent papers demonstrate the synthesis of polymer-DNA biohybrids by solid-phase incorporation of ATRP initiators and also successful auto-transfection of short interfering RNA through facile covalent polymer escorts. The equally important impact was the discovery and development of surface-initiated ATRP and covalent linking of polymers with inorganic nanoparticles, wafers, and other solid substrates.

ATRP has been used for the synthesis of macromolecules with complex architecture (brushes, stars, gradient or multiblock copolymers) and a variety of nanostructured hybrids, bioconjugates, N-doped nanocarbons and many other advanced materials. He developed new molecular bottlebrushes with excellent lubricating and supersoft properties.

A quote from the perspective article (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 6513) provides a unique and lucid description of a basic principle of ATRP and other controlled radical polymerization and systems: “A new concept was introduced in order to tame this uncontrolled radical behavior. By inserting periods of ca. 1 min dormancy after each ca. 1 ms of activity, the overall life of propagating chains was extended from ca. 1 s to more than 1 day. Thus, the 1 s of radical activity was expanded, as in an accordion, to several hours with hundreds of intermediate dormancy periods. This would be like extending person’s life from 100 years to 3000 years, if after each 1 day of activity a person could be dormant for 1 month. This extension of the lifetime of growing chains from 1 s to over several hours was accomplished by insertion of multiple reversible radical deactivation steps. It has enabled synthesis of well-defined, essentially tailor-made polymers via macromolecular engineering.”

This new concept of equilibria between active and dormant species applies not only to polymer systems but, in fact, also operates in biological systems, enzymatic, such as Vitamin B-12, but also redox equilibria in the respiratory chain and lipid isomerization or redox recycling of the antioxidant systems.

Equally important is the development of new Cu complexes - over 1,000,000,000 times more active than the original ATRP catalysts. They allow the reduction of the amount of the catalyst to ppm level and permit ATRP in environmentally friendly media (water). Now, organic chemists use catalysts developed by Matyjaszewski to prepare new molecules in cascade-like atom transfer radical addition and cyclization. The polymerization was also carried out under biologically relevant conditions (ambient temperature, low concentrations, buffers). Various benign reducing agents such as sugars, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), or iron allow ATRP in the presence of a limited amount of air. Recently, Matyjaszewski introduced new electrochemically controlled Cu-based ATRP, mechanically controlled ATRP, as well as photochemically controlled ATRP, which can be carried on a bench or in 96-well plates, open to air in aqueous media. For his contributions to the environmental aspects of ATRP, he was awarded the 2009 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award.

Matyjaszewski shifted paradigms of radical polymerization by developing new living processes that enabled the preparation of materials not available before. He has changed how people think about and actually do macromolecular synthesis. His discoveries have driven the development of many fields, not only synthetic polymer chemistry but also materials science, biology, medicine, surface and colloidal science, and other related areas. Materials, previously unavailable, can now be constructed with unprecedentedly precise macromolecular architecture and in a simple, robust, and commercially viable way. ATRP has been successfully used in commercial industrial applications in the US, Japan, and Europe to create better pigment dispersants for inkjet printing and automotive coatings, cosmetics, chromatographic packings, adhesives, sealants for self-cleaning windows, automotive gaskets, flat panel displays, and other applications. Products made by ATRP are evaluated for drug and nucleic acid delivery, coatings for cardiovascular stents, scaffoldings for bone regeneration, biocidal surfaces, degradable plastics, and others in the optoelectronic and automotive industries.

In addition to his pioneering research on ATRP and other controlled radical polymerization systems, Matyjaszewski developed new synthetic routes to inorganic and organometallic polymers, including the first well-defined block copolymers of polysilanes and polyphosphazenes. He also has made seminal contributions to living cationic polymerization and provided the first comprehensive theory of this process, proceeding by a dynamic exchange between carbocations and either esters or onium ions as dormant species.

ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS
A round table discussion open to everyone interested will be organized during the symposium. This will allow high level representatives of various industries, technologies, and academic disciplines to discuss and debate freely, without reservations, all topics of this symposium and identify possible research and development pathways towards a future industry with increased sustainability. Click here for a description of the topics of symposium and the round table.

You are cordially invited to actively participate in this symposium by submitting and presenting a paper, or by attending the round table. We look forward to meeting you at this world class symposium.

Click here to see the detailed scope and topics.
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