Title: Advanced Porous Organic Polymers: Task-Specific Design and Functionalization

Speaker: Associate Professor Shengqian Ma (University of South Florida, USA)

Date/Time: 10:00-11:00 AM, Dec. 18, 2016 (Sun.)

Location: Room 601, Chemistry Building.

Abstract:
 
Porous organic polymers (POPs) represent an emerging class of nanoporous materials, and they feature robust covalent framework structures with high water and chemical stability. This, together with their high surface areas and tunable pore sizes, makes them hold promise for a variety of applications. We will demonstrate how POPs can be task-specific designed and functionalized via either de novel synthesis or stepwise post-synthetic modification for applications in catalysis, gas separation, and contaminant removal.

Biography:
  Shengqian Ma obtained his B.S. degree from Jilin University, China in 2003, and graduated from Miami University (Ohio) with a Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Hong-Cai Joe Zhou (currently at Texas A&M University) in 2008. After finishing two-year Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at Argonne National Laboratory, he joined the Department of Chemistry at University of South Florida (USF) as an Assistant Professor in August 2010. He was promoted to an Associate Professor with early tenure in 2015.
  He received the 2015 USF Faculty Outstanding Research Achievement Award. He is the recipient of 2014 NSF CAREER Award and has been selected as the Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher in both 2014 and 2015; he was also awarded the IUPAC-2015 Young Chemist Travel Award and the 2009 IUPAC Prize for Young Chemists from International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry (IUPAC); he received the Young Investigator Award from American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Inorganic Chemistry and the Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship from Argonne National Laboratory in 2008 as well.
  His current research interest focuses on the development of functional porous materials including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), porous organic polymers (POPs), and microporous carbon materials for energy, biological, environmental-related applications. He has published more than 120 papers (over 80 since independent career) with the total citations over 10000 and the H-index of 51.