Photoactive organic-inorganic hybrid polymer waveguides for optical device technologies

© 2020 SPIE. Organic-inorganic hybrid polymers based on ureasils have found application as waveguides in luminescent solar concentrators and visible light communications. The mechanical properties, and thus processability of ureasils, has previously been qualitatively linked to the chemical structure, but has not yet been studied in detail. In this study, a series of low molecular weight ureasil polymers has been synthesised, and the correlation between the chemical structure and the optical and mechanical properties investigated. A wide-range of techniques are employed to investigate this relationship, including steady-state photoluminescence and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, 4-point flexural testing, and uniaxial tensile testing.This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 818762 - SPECTRACON). T. J. F. S. thanks the EPSRC (EP/N509620/1) for financial support

Dual-template approach to hierarchically porous polymer membranes

A dual-template approach is used to embed multilevel porosity into poly(ethersulfone) membranes prepared by non-solvent induced phase separation, leading to a 95% increase in permeability.</p

Guest size limitation in metal-organic framework crystal-glass composites

MOF crystal-glass composites (MOF CGCs) are materials with crystalline MOFs embedded within a MOF glass. Here we develop two novel MOF CGCs, and explore the gas uptake and guest-size limitations within these materials.</p