Lab News
Sep 30 2024 Congratulations to Roberto, as his review article Mechanochemistry of Cylcobutanes is accepted for publication in Science China Chemistry!
Aug 23 2024 Our NSF project (2042494) 2023 highlight was selected by the Division of Materials Research for publication on its webpage. We are thrilled about this opportunity and will continue to pursue excellence in research and education!
Aug 01 2024 We welcome new postdoc Yongming Wang.
Jul 03 2024 The group enjoyed an outing filled with concerts (by the Cleveland Orchestra) and fireworks at the Blossom Music Center! What a way to celebrate the many good things happening in the lab this year!
Jun 20 2024 Congratulations to Hanlin, Xin, Puyan, and Devavrat, as their paper “Deconstruction of Unsaturated Polymers through Photo-Mediated Oxidation under O2” has been accepted for publication in Cell Reports Physical Science. Read a news article that highlights the work.
Jun 17 2024 We welcome high school students Kenedy Cross and I Sha Bee from North High School joining us this summer.
Jun 08 2024 Our lab enjoyed an outreach event Polymer Palooza at the Akron Children’s Museum. Read an article about it in the Akron Beacon Journal.
Jun 03 2024 We welcome REU student Ashley Zelina from Kent State University joining us this summer.
May 14 2024 Our review article “Deconstruction of Polymers through Olefin Metathesis” has been accepted for publication in Chemical Reviews. This review article will be included in a Thematic Issue The Future of Plastics Sustainability. Great team effort by Devavrat, Seiyoung, Zeyu, and Hanlin.
May 07 2024 Our high school student Megan Kalail presented her work on vitrimers at the SVSM STEM research symposium.
May 03 2024 Zeyu won the Dean Stephen Z.D. Cheng Award. Roberto won the Maurice Morton Award. Congratulations to Zeyu and Roberto!
Apr 25 2024 Junpeng is selected as a 2024 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. Thrilled to be included in this amazing group!
Mar 28 2024 Junpeng has been promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure. Credit goes to all past and current lab members, who make this journey very enjoyable.
Mar 01 2024 We welcome new postdoc Mengdong Guo.
Dec 16 2023 Everyone received a lovely present from Secret Santa!
Nov 17 2023 We welcome new PhD student Zefeng Wang and new MS student Junyang Li.
Oct 31 2023 Hanlin successfully defended his dissertation “Overcoming Challenges in Polymer Sustainability by Leveraging Alkene Chemistry – Isomerization, Metathesis and Oxidation”. Congrats, Dr. Chen!
Oct 13 2023 Congratulations to Zeyu, as his paper Bulk Depolymerization of Graft Polymers Based on Trans-Cyclobutane-Fused Cyclooctene is accepted for publication in Polymer Chemistry!
Aug 30 2023 Devavrat successfully defended his dissertation “Molecular Design Towards Chemically Recyclable Polymers and Force Responsive Networks”. Congrats, Dr. Sathe!
Jul 23 2023 Congratulations to Zeyu, as his work “Thermal, Mechanical, and Morphological Studies of a Depolymerizable Graft Copolymer Thermoplastic”, is accepted for publication in Polymer Journal.
Jun 05 2023 We welcome REU student Benjamin Pepper from University of Massachusetts Amherst!
May 06 2023 Our lab is well represented in the annual SPSPE award ceremony: Tze-Gang won the Stephen Z. D. Cheng Award and Zeyu won the Darrell Reneker Endowed Scholarship. Congratulations to Tze-Gang and Zeyu!
Apr 27 2023 Tze-Gang successfully defended his PhD thesis on mechanochemically controlled polymer degradation and sequence controlled polymer synthesis. Congratulations to Dr. Tze-Gang Hsu, the very first PhD of the group!!!
Apr 27 2023 Our collaborative work “Precision Native Polysaccharides from Living Polymerization of Anhydrosugars” led by Prof. Jia Niu and Dr. Lianqian Wu at Boston College is published in Nature Chemistry! Congratulations to everyone and looking forward to future collaborations with the Niu group!
Mar 29 2023 Our Minireview “Mechanochemical Degradation and Recycling of Synthetic Polymers” has been accepted for publication in Angewandte Chemie. Kudos to Junfeng and Tze-Gang for leading this effort!
Mar 20 2023 Devavrat, Junfeng, and Hanlin put together a video article to demo our work Depolymerizable Olefinic Polymers Based on Fused-Ring Cyclooctene Monomers, published in Journal of Virualized Experiment. Congratulations to the team on a nice effort!
Mar 18 2023 During the annual U Akron Science Day event, our high school student Mason Reiss won two awards, Outstanding High School Project & Best Materials Project (in the Material Science section). Way to go, Mason!
Mar 9 2023 Congratulations to Zeyu, as he is selected to receive an Eastman Travel Award for his presentation at the ACS Spring 2023 Meeting!
Feb 15 2023 Junpeng receives the 2023 Sloan Research Fellowship! Thanks to all our past and current members for their hard work that makes this possible.
Feb 14 2023 Happy Valentine’s Day! What makes us happier is that our work“Mechanochemically Accessing a Challenging-to-Synthesize Depolymerizable Polymer” is highlighted by Chemistry World. Read the news article “Locked Degradability Breaks Plastic Paradox“.
Jan 18 2023 Our collaborative work led by Prof. Jia Niu and Wenqi Wang “Macrocyclic Allylic Sulfone as a Universal Comonomer in Organocatalyzed Photocontrolled Radical Copolymerization with Vinyl Monomers” is published in Macromolecules! Congratulations to all the coauthors!
Jan 09 2023 Congratulations to Tze-Gang, Shiqi, and all the coauthors for the acceptance of their paper “Mechanochemically Accessing a Challenging-to-Synthesize Depolymerizable Polymer” in Nature Communications!
Dec 20 2022 We had a group party featuring Secret Santa and Topgolf. Thanks to everyone for making a great year together!
Dec 19 2022 Congratulations to Hsin-Wei, Junfeng, and Seiyoung, as their work “Evaluating Trans-Benzocyclobutene-Fused Cyclooctene as a Monomer for Chemically Recyclable Polymer” has been accepted for publication in Chemistry – An Asian Journal. This manuscript will be published in the special collection Sustainable Solutions for Plastic Issues.
Dec 07 2022 We welcome two new Ph.D. students Marzieh Shabani and Roberto Obregon!
Nov 14 2022 Congratulations to Junfeng, Devavrat, and Andrew, as their work “Synthesis and Mechanochemical Inertness of a Zn (II) Bidipyrrin Double Helix” is accepted for publication in Journal of Polymer Science.
Oct 19 2022 Working again with John Fellenstein, Akron Global Academy Content Specialist, known as “Professor Polymer,” we participated in another outreach activity—the Dodge Family Polymer Night.
Oct 15 2022 Working with John Fellenstein, we hosted a Spooky Science Day at Akron Children’s Museum. For more details, read the news article and watch the Youtube video.
Oct 11 2022 We welcome Master’s student Puyan Zhang.
Oct 05 2022 Congratulations to Zeyu and Seiyoung as their work Breaking the Paradox between Grafting-through and Depolymerization to Access Recyclable Graft Polymers is accepted for publication in Macromolecules!
Sep 15 2022 Congratulations to Hanlin on winning the 2022 Polymer Modifier & Additives Division Scholarship from the SPE foundation!
Jun 17 2022 Seiyoung wins the Goodyear Fellowship! Way to go, Seiyoung! We are excited about this opportunity to work with Goodyear on sustainable elastomers!
Jun 16 2022 Congratulations to Ziqi for having successfully defended his master’s thesis!
Jun 07 2022 Congratulations to Devavrat as his paper Regulating the Thermodynamics and Thermal properties of Depolymerizable Polycyclooctenes through Substituent Effects has been accepted for publication in Macromolecular Rapid Communications!
Jun 06 2022 We welcome REU student Jared Rivera from University of Puerto Rico!
May 13 2022 Congratulations to Tze-Gang as he wins the best poster award in the poster session on the UA Polymer Appreciation Day.
May 05 2022 We receive an NSF grant that will support our work on Mechanically Active Degradable Polymers. Thank you, NSF!
May 02 2022 Congratulations to Seiyoung as he wins the Maurice Morton Award, which recognizes his excellent academic performance in his first two years at Akron!
Apr 26 2022 Devavrat is selected by SPSPE to win the Professor Harwood Award for this academic year. Hanlin wins the Robert E. Helm Fellowship, which will support his project on Regulating the Thermodynamics and Material Properties of Chemically Recyclable Polymers through Photoisomerization. Congratulations, Devavrat and Hanlin!!!
Apr 20 2022 We are thrilled to be part of the NSF-funded Graduate Traineeship on Advances in Materials Science using Machine Learning. Click here to read a post about the program.
Apr 04 2022 Congratulations to Devavrat and Junfeng, as their paper Depolymerizable Semi-fluorinated Polymers for Sustainable Functional Materials has been accepted for publication in Polymer Chemistry.
Jan 26 2022 Our work Understanding the Structure–Polymerization Thermodynamics Relationships of Fused-Ring Cyclooctenes for Developing Chemically Recyclable Polymers is highlighted by the JACS Spotlight. Thanks to JACS for publishing and featuring our work!
Jan 05 2022 Congratulations to Junfeng and Devavrat, as their paper Understanding the Structure–Polymerization Thermodynamics Relationships of Fused-Ring Cyclooctenes for Developing Chemically Recyclable Polymers has been published in JACS!
Dec 16 2021 Our work Olefin Metathesis-Based Chemically Recyclable Polymers Enabled by Fused-Ring Monomers is included in the C&EN’s Year in Chemistry 2021 as an important breakthrough in plastics recycling research! Really a great honor and encouragement for us! We will continue to work hard to push the boundaries!
Dec 10 2021 Congratulations to Devavrat, whose collaborative work with the Niu group, “Degradable Vinyl Random Copolymers via Photocontrolled Radical Ring-Opening Cascade Copolymerization,” has just been published in Angewandte Chemie.
Dec 08 2021 Everyone got a nice present from Secret Santa! Great to do this in person again!
Nov 30 2021 Due to the recent hacking issues with the blogs.uakron.edu site, the original website junpenglab.uakron.edu is only accessible internally; we have migrated to a new group website: junpengwanglab.org.
Nov 22 2021 We welcome Ph.D. student Ming-Chi Wang and Master’s student Xin Guan!
Oct 13 2021 Thanks to the ACS Petroleum Research Fund for supporting our project Depolymerizable Alternating Copolymers through a Doctoral New Investigator (DNI) Grant! We are excited about the opportunity to work on this project!
Oct 05 2021 Congratulations to Devavrat for being selected as the winner of the UA SPSPE to present at the Symposium Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research in the 2022 Spring ACS! Way to go, Devavrat!
Sep 09 2021 Congratulations to Hanlin (again), Zhen, and Tze-Gang as their work “Overcoming the Low Driving Force in Forming Depolymerizable Polymers through Monomer Isomerization” has been accepted in Angewandte Chemie! Please click here to read the paper.
Aug 26 2021 Congratulations to Hanlin, whose collaborative work with the Gong group on high-performance perovskite solar cells has just been published in J. Mat. Chem. A. Link of the paper: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/ta/d1ta05934c
July 22 2021 We are so thrilled to finally see our recent work on depolymerizable ROMP polymers published online in Nature Chemistry! Congratulation to Devavrat, Junfeng, Hanlin, Hsin-Wei, Wei, Tze-Gang and our collaborators! Great teamwork!
June 08 2021 We welcome REU student Erin Sturd from the University of Kansas!
May 27 2021 Congratulations to Tze-Gang for winning a Sigma Xi grant-in-aid, which will support his project of mechanical generation of depolymerizable polymers. Way to go, Tze-Gang!
May 15 2021 We are glad to (finally) be able to celebrate the graduation of Shiqi, Zhen, Jiayi, and Wei in person!
Mar 13 2021 Congratulations to Shiqi, Zhen, Jiayi, and Wei for having successfully defended their master’s theses! While this was done virtually, we hope to celebrate in person in the near future.
Feb 05 2021 We receive an NSF CAREER Award that will support our work on Depolymerizable ROMP Polymers! Thank you, NSF!
Jan 11 2021 We welcome first-year PhD student Seiyoung Yoon!
Dec 23 2020 The group had a nice virtual Secret Santa activity to say goodbye to 2020 and to wish for the best in 2021.
Nov 15 2020 We welcome “3+2” student Ziqi Yi.
Oct 15 2020 We are thankful for the generous support from DOE and excited to work on the project of Highly Recyclable Thermosets for Lightweight Composites together with collaborators at the University of Akron, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Raytheon Technologies Research Center!
Aug 1 2020 We are glad that our former master’s students, Hsin-Wei and Zeyu, are going to continue their PhD studies with us!
Jun 20 2020 Andrew took his science project “The synthesis of helical polymer containing a ROTC complex” to a higher level—The State of Ohio Science Day and received an excellent review (should we even be surprised?). Congratulations again to Andrew and his mentor Junfeng Zhou!
May 13 2020 In the Annual U Akron Science Day event (which occurred virtually this year due to the pandemic), our high school student Andrew Ciccotelli has won two first prizes: one in Polymer and the other in Sustainable Materials and Design, for his project “The synthesis of helical polymer containing an ROTC complex”. Way to go, Andrew!
Feb 22 2020 Congratulations to Xiaomeng, Hsin-Wei, and Zeyu for having successfully defended their master’s theses!
Feb 20 2020 Congratulations to Tze-Gang for winning the Ronald Eby Award, which recognizes his excellent academic performance in the first two years at Akron!
Feb 05 2020 Our paper “A Polymer with “Locked” Degradability: Superior Backbone Stability and Accessible Degradability Enabled by Mechanophore Installation” is highlighted by a JACS spotlight article.
Jan 14 2020 Congratulations to Tze-Gang, Junfeng and Hsin-Wei, as their paper “A Polymer with “Locked” Degradability: Superior Backbone Stability and Accessible Degradability Enabled by Mechanophore Installation” has been accepted for publication in JACS!
Jan 14 2020 The group had a “new semester resolution” group meeting, during which everyone was excited and ready for the challenge and opportunities of the new semester and new year!
Nov 01 2019 The group welcomes four new “3+2″/”4+2” students Shiqi Liu, Zhen Shi, Jiayi Wang and Wei Xie! See group page for more details.
Aug 15 2019 The group win the “Most Improved Lab” award in the 2019 Battle of the Labs in CPSPE! Kudos to the team!
Jul 15 2019 The group welcomes two new members: Dr. Junfeng Zhou (postdoc) from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry and Bingze Wu (visiting undergraduate student) from University of Science and Technology of China! See group page for more details.
May 28 2019 The group welcomes our summer REU student Rumbila Abdullahi! See group page for more details.
Jan 07 2019 Welcome to our five new group members, including Ph.D. students Hanlin Chen, Tze-Gang Hsu, and Devavrat Sathe as well as master’s students Xiaomeng Li and Hsin-Wei Su! See the group page for more details.
Jan 01 2019 The Junpeng Wang lab starts! We are thankful for the full support and warm welcome from CPSPE at U Akron and excited about the research opportunity!