Speaker: Professor Xing-Hong ZHANG

Institution: Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University

Hosted by: Professor Benzhong TANG

Abstract

The oil refinery and coal utilization lead to energy, a variety of chemicals for our modern society, and of course some so-called waste gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), and waste solid such as sulfur. The sulfur can be easily converted to carbonyl sulfide (COS) and carbon disulfide (CS₂), sulfur-containing one-carbon (C1) compounds. As a result, using these C1 compounds is essential to the clean and sustainable utilization of the petroleum.  Our team is committed to converting them to polymers in recent years. By coupling reaction of C1 with epoxides that are basic chemicals in industry, a variety of polymers will be produced in a controlled manner.  We’ll report these fantastic polymerization processes: 1) Poly(carbonate)s from CO₂ and epoxides, 2) Poly(monothiocarbonate)s from COS and epoxides, 3) Poly(thioether)s from COS (CS₂) and epoxides, 4) CO₂-derived luminescent materials and challenges in the synthesis and applications of the C1-based polymers.

About the speaker

Professor, deputy dean of the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University. He received Ph.D. at Zhejiang university in the summer of 2006. He then became an Assistant Professor and was promoted to be an Associate Professor at the end of 2009 and a full Professor at the end of 2016.  In 2012-2013, he worked as a visiting scholar at Moore group at Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana−Champaign, supervised by Dr. Jeffrey S. Moore. His current research interest focuses on the synthesis and catalysis of sustainable polymers using one-carbon feedstocks (CO₂, COS and CS₂), and fluorescent polymers. He has published 80⁺ peer-reviewed papers, including JACS, Nat. Commun., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., and Acc. Chem. Res., etc., and 4 book chapters. He has currently held 20 authorized Chinese invention patents and 2 authorized U.S. patents. He has been invited to deliver 15+ talks in international conferences. His invention on CO₂-based polymers has entered the industrial production.