Abstract
Polymers of Intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) are materials whose porosity is induced by the inefficient packing of their long chains in the solid state, which leaves pores of nano-dimension. They provide advantages over similar polymers as they are composed of only light elements such as C, H, N, O. Their high BET surface areas make them suitable for application as gas storage and gas separation.1 Particular emphasis is placed on the functionalisation of organic monomers to introduce a site of contortion, an essential characteristic to induce microporosity, and on the development of novel synthetic procedures for the preparation PIMs to be used for high performing membranes for gas separation and purification. Recently, the very challenging quest for new selective membranes with enhanced gas separation performance, led us to the design and synthesis of a brand-new class of polymers based on the formation of Tröger’s base units.2 The improvement of the performance of PIMs can be enhanced by preparation of novel Mixed Matrix Membranes (MMMs), which are new materials that link the use of organic polymeric supports (our polymeric materials) to the inorganic nature of MOFs or other additives. Along with the work on gas separation, in the past few years, we started extending the range of applications for PIMs. For instance, in collaboration with other excellent research groups, we exploited our polymers in different scientific fields such as catalysis,3 ionic diodes4, and highly conductive anionic exchange membranes.5
(1) Rose, I.; Bezzu, C. G.; Carta, M.; Comesana-Gandara, B.; Lasseuguette, E.; Ferrari, M. C.; Bernardo, P.; Clarizia, G.; Fuoco, A.; Jansen, J. C.et al. Polymer ultrapermeability from the inefficient packing of 2D chains. Nature Materials 2017, 16 (9), 932.
(2) Carta, M.; Malpass-Evans, R.; Croad, M.; Rogan, Y.; Jansen, J. C.; Bernardo, P.; Bazzarelli, F.; McKeown, N. B. An Efficient Polymer Molecular Sieve for Membrane Gas Separations. Science (Washington, DC, U. S.) 2013, 339 (6117), 303.
(3) Carta, M.; Croad, M.; Bugler, K.; Msayib, K. J.; McKeown, N. B. Heterogeneous organocatalysts composed of microporous polymer networks assembled by Troger’s base formation. Polym. Chem. 2014, 5 (18), 5262.
(4) Madrid, E.; Rong, Y.; Carta, M.; McKeown, N. B.; Malpass-Evans, R.; Attard, G. A.; Clarke, T. J.; Taylor, S. H.; Long, Y.-T.; Marken, F. Metastable Ionic Diodes Derived from an Amine-Based Polymer of Intrinsic Microporosity. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2014, 53 (40), 10751.
(5) Yang, Z.; Guo, R.; Malpass-Evans, R.; Carta, M.; McKeown, N. B.; Guiver, M. D.; Wu, L.; Xu, T. Highly Conductive Anion-Exchange Membranes from Microporous Tröger’s Base Polymers. Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2016, 55 (38), 11499.
Biography
Dr Mariolino Carta received his Master’s degree in Organic Chemistry in Italy in 2004, working on pharmaceutical active compounds (PNAs). In 2005, he moved to Cardiff University to do a PhD in Organic Material Chemistry. After completing the PhD in 2008, he held a PDRA position in Cardiff until 2014, when he moved to the University of Edinburgh for another PDRA position. In October 2017, Dr Carta has been appointed as Lecturer in Chemistry at Swansea University. To date he has published over 70 scientific outputs including peer-reviewed papers, patents, conference proceedings and chapters. These outputs have been cited over 1500 times, which yield an h-Index of 22. (Scopus). Dr Carta is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC) and a STEM Ambassador. He contributed to very successful multi-million, multi-disciplinary consortia such as the EPSRC Supergen XIV (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/supergen/project/), which aimed to the technological advancement in the production and delivery hydrogen as a sustainable fuel, the EU consortium M4CO2 (http://www.m4co2.eu/), a large group which involved 16 partners from 8 European countries, designed to improve the performance of gas separation membranes by means of Metal Organic Framework (MOFs) based Mixed Matrix Membranes (MMMs) and the EPSRC funded multi-disciplinary consortium SynFabFun (https://research.ncl.ac.uk/synfabfun/) which ambitions are to stabilise membrane performance towards physical ageing.