Research

The research focus of the Loo Lab is the design and characterization of next generation polymeric materials that promote sustainability. While the widespread adoption of polymer-based consumer materials has led to global quality of life improvements, polymer scientists are now faced with tackling the grand challenge of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels as well as upcycling the generated polymer waste. In the Loo Lab, the desire to promote sustainability is the motivation behind our research on polymeric materials. 

Research in the Loo Lab can be divided into two themes: (1) sustainable polymeric materials and (2) polymer-based energy storage devices. In both research themes, we synthesize our own materials and characterize them on the nanometer length-scale using a variety of scattering, spectroscopy, and microscopy techniques. Our goal is to develop new structure-property relationships that will lead to the design of next-generation polymer materials with improved properties. 

We study a wide variety of sustainable polymeric materials including those biodegradable in nature, with programmable recycling strategies and synthesized from sustainable feedstocks (not from the petrochemical industry). The goal of this research theme is to develop a suite of alternative polymeric materials with improved performance properties to replace those used in consumer products today.

We research polymer based energy storage devices such as polymer electrolytes for solid-state batteries and anion exchange membranes for fuel cell applications. In these projects, we are focused on developing a molecular-level understanding of how ions interact with and move within the polymer chains across different length-scales within the hierarchical structure of polymeric materials.