Aug. 25, 2022
Building polymers one molecule at a time
A Mizzou Engineering researcher has demonstrated a new method of controlling material behavior by building polymers molecule-by-molecule. Polymers are made of long, repeating chains of single molecules known as monomers. In this study, Matthias Young — an assistant professor of biomedical, biological and chemical engineering — focused on monomers that exhibit high electrochemical capabilities, making them good candidates to serve as electrode materials for energy storage. Young and others have previously demonstrated that they could grow inorganic films onto carbon electrodes to make fast-charging batteries and supercapacitors, through a process known as atomic layer deposition. However, scaling up…