The Rech Research Group is officially open for business!
Summer 2024 is the first block of fully dedicated time we’ve been able to spend in the lab and we made a lot of great progress. First, we finished getting everything set up and have a fully functioning lab space – many pictures over in lab facilities. Additionally, after getting everyone trained on organic synthesis techniques, we began to push forwards with our new projects.
Here is the group: (left to right) Dr. Rech, Marta, Adam, and Andrew
Andrew began work on his undergraduate capstone project: making recyclable conjugated polymers. First, he was able to successfully synthesize an model system of MEH-PPV. We used this to help setup our degradation studies and serve as the first proof of concept to our larger goals. He also made great progress on the synthesis of our new recyclable conjugated linker… much more details to come in the future!
Adam joined us after a vacation in France and began working on his undergraduate capstone project: designing side chains for green solvent processability. He was able to scale up a big batch of our fluorinated quinoxaline core, and we’ll be exploring different ionic/polar side chains in the near future. Additionally, Adam also did a ton of work on building our OPV database as part of a larger machine learning collaboration.
Marta joins us from Olin College of Engineering (Massachusetts) as part of our REU program. Her project was focused on making a great low cost conjugated polymer called PTQ10. Over the course of the summer, she was able to complete the entire synthesis and presented her work via posted at the end of summer.
As we move into the fall semester, we look to carry the momentum from summer. In just a few weeks, Dr. Rech is travel to Tucson, Arizona to participate in the SM3 Scialog conference. Hopeful this can net some great collaborations and maybe even some funding!