3D Bioplotter Research Papers

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a ubiquitous thermoplastic used in textiles and packaging, is one of the primary contributors to plastic pollution. While PET is also one of the most recycled plastics, it has value as a rich source of chemical building blocks. When PET is depolymerized by amino alcohols (“alkanolamines”) such as monoethanolamine (MEA), terephthalamide-diol molecules are produced. In the presence of thionyl chloride (SOCl2), these diols are amenable to transformation to the corresponding dichloride monomers, which can then be polymerized via condensation methods (i.e., Menshutkin reaction) with bisimidazole compounds followed by ion-exchange to yield polyamide (PA)-ionenes with tailored structures. The…

This work presents the first example of an imidazolium ionene containing aromatic ether-ketone-ether linkages inspired by poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK), a well-known ultrahigh-performance (UHP) engineering polymer. The requisite starting materials for this “PEEK ionene” were efficiently synthesized in good yields and then polymerized through condensation (Menshutkin reaction), followed by anion metathesis to form the final polymer product, which had a number-average molecular weight (Mn) of ∼90 kDa. The properties of the PEEK-ionene were thoroughly characterized, and its potential utility was demonstrated by analyzing this material as a gas separation membrane and 3D-printing this ionic UHP polymer. Thin films of this…