Value Proposition:
· The organosilicon described can be produced at room temperature, making it a less energy intensive material to create and manipulate.
· The incorporation of silicon into the material backbone supports strand elasticity and material robustness for use in energy and electronics materials.
Technology Description
· Researchers at Johns Hopkins have developed a method for producing silacycloheptene (poly(trans-SiCH)) polymers in accordance with predictive computational models.
· This methodology can be completed at room-temperature, making this a thermally favorable synthesis.
· The poly(trans-SiCH) produced has a smaller spring constant compared to popular analogues, suggesting that this material could improve the properties of the bulk polymer network.
Unmet Need
Silicon-based polymers, used in semiconductors and other electronics, are important for the future of creating flexible and large-area electronics [Khan et al, 2019]. These polymers are not easy to manufacture, however, and current electronics use a variety of thermally-intensive technologies to create silicon wafers and electronics. Therefore, there is a strong need to develop manufacturing methods for organosilicon polymers that address the need for silicon polymer synthesis in a thermally-stable and flexible fashion.
Stage of Development
This technology has been validated and analyzed benchtop at lab scale.
Publication
Herbert Wakefield IV, Ilia Kevlishvili, Kelsie E. Wentz, Yunxin Yao, Tatiana B. Kouznetsova, Sophia J. Melvin, Em G. Ambrosius, Abraham Herzog-Arbeitman, Maxime A. Siegler, Jeremiah A. Johnson, Stephen L. Craig, Heather J. Kulik, and Rebekka S. Klausen. Synthesis and Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization of a Strained trans-Silacycloheptene and Single-Molecule Mechanics of Its Polymer. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2023 145 (18), 10187-10196. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.3c01004
