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...to my blog, documenting the state and progress of my work on the exciting topic of dynamic polymer networks, or more specifically vitrimers, in the frame work of the DFG funded Walter Benjamin position at the Leibniz-Institute for Composite Materials.
April, 23rd 2025: Slowly but surely…
…the Walter Benjamin project comes to an end. At the end of April, I will have spend two years researching the fascinating class of dynamic polymer networks (DPN) within the DFG-funded Walter-Benjamin project and it is time to review the accomplishments as well as to acknowledge the things that did not work out as planned or hoped for.
From a general perspective, it was a great scientific adventure. I prepared my own research proposal, went through the DFG review process and finally got the project idea funded. The project started in May 2023 and I had the chance to independently progress the field of DPNs with my own ideas at the Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe. During this time, four papers have been published, a book chapter has been prepared and I presented my work at 3 conferences. Also, I spend a two months research stay at the Polymer Competence Center in Leoben, Austria, with PD Dr. Sandra Schlögl. Even more, at least two journal publications are still planned based on the work within the WB project, and another book chapter is in preparation. Also, I will travel to Iceland in August this year to present the last part of the work at the “Dynamic polymer network” conference.
Since the last post from October 2024, I was extremely busy, preparing a new, successive project proposal. This new proposal greatly advances the ideas and my interests in dynamic polymer networks beyond the current state of the art having been addressed in the WB project. Also, it would allow me to lead my own research group. It will take about 8 months to get a final feedback. The proposal was submitted in mid February. Fingers crossed.
During the same time, a joint project proposal within the aviation research programme of the “German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action” was not successful. Well, I think one of the most important things in academia is indeed not to stop pushing. Things go wrong or not as planned but they should not stop you from pursuing your overall goal, even though it is tedious and time-consuming, because every proposal still needs to be on point. Having said this and folding it with the almighty German Wisseschaftszeitvertragsgesetz…you know where this is going. Some are summarizing it as “the life of a Postdoc”.
Yet to come:
In any case, before the project will officially find an end, I will have the opportunity to host a Mini-Symposium: Vitrimers Connect: From Physics & Chemistry to Engineering.
The symposium will take place the upcoming week on the 29th of April at the Leibniz-Institut für Verbundwerkstoffe and serves as a final event to the Walter Benjamin project. Excitingly, I will be able to gather leading scientists from the field of vitrimers and dynamic polymer networks. After an interdisciplinary Get-together on the 28th of April, the main event, one day later, aims to foster the scientific exchange from physics and chemistry to engineering.
I am very much looking forward to the event! A more detailed blog entry will follow after the symposium.
Since I did not regularly update the blog in the last six months because so many other things were on my mind, I will do that now in an inverse chronological order:
April, 1st to 3rd 2025: SAMPE Germany Innovation award & visiting the SAMPE Symposium in Aachen
This years’ SAMPE symposium was held in Aachen. It was preceded by the SAMPE innovation award, which is an annually occurring event to honour the best student Bachelor, Master and PhD thesis in the field of polymer composites. All 15 composite centers in Germany can submit two selected student applications to the pool of applicants. The award is given to the best Bachelor or Master and PhD thesis, based on a comprehensively written summary and a 10 minute pitch presentation of the work. This year, it was the first time that the event took place in person on site at the IKV in Aachen. From the IVW, Dr. Andreas Baumann and Rodrigo Luengo Scotto successfully pitched their PhD and Master thesis, respectively. More details and pictures can be found here.
The next day, the annual SAMPE Symposium took place. The center of interest was “Clean energy and mobility: Shaping a sustainable future with composite materials”, including a session of vitrimers in the field of composite science.
March 27, 2025: “Escaping the Elite Illusion”, a talk by Nobel prize laureate Joshua Angrist
In March, I had the chance to attend a talk given by Nobel prize laureate Joshua Angrist at the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim. Prof. Angrist is an economist and focusses his research amongst others on econometrics. His talk impressively highlighted the relevance of elite academic institutions on future career success.
March, 24th to 26th 2025: Third module of the Leibniz-Leadership Academy - Developing Leadership
The third module (out of 4) of the Leibniz-Leadership Academy took again place at Schwanenwerder in Berlin. Schwanenwerder is a small island in the middle of Berlin. Interestingly, currently Germany’s most expensive luxury real estate is up for sale for just below 80 Mio. Euros.
January, 13th to 15th 2025: Second module of the Leibniz-Leadership Academy - Developing Leadership
The second module (out of 4) of the Leibniz-Leadership Academy took place in Mannheim, at the ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research. Again, it was a great event with dinner at the Dachgarten in Mannheim.
December, 3rd to 5th 2024: First module of the Leibniz-Leadership Academy - Developing Leadership: Materials Science meets Climate Impact Research meets Bioinformatics
The first module to the Leibniz-Leadership Academy took place in Berlin - Schwanenwerder, a small island in the middle of Berlin. About 20 (prospective) leaders from various Leibniz reserach institutes underwent the first part of the training course`"Developing leadership" lead by "LEAD Forward".
This training focussed on our self-leadership skills. Hence, to better understand what kind of leaders we are (already), which skills we can or should improve and to find out where we eventually overestimate our leadership skills.
The two-and-a-half day traing was a great experience, including an excellent opportunity to network.
I am looking forward to the next module in January 2025 in Mannheim.
October, 28th and 29th 2024: Visit from Dr. Niklas Lorenz from the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands
This year in April, I got to know Dr. Niklas Lorenz at the SAMPE Symposium in Karlsruhe. He was one of the finalists for the Innovation award and had just started his postdoctoral phase at the TU Delft, where he started working on disulphide-based vitrimer composites. The specialty about these materials is that they do not require an additional catalyst to undergo dynamic bond exchange.
On October 29, Dr. Lorenz visited IVW and gave an engaging lecture on the processing of disulfide-based vitrimer matrix fiber-reinforced composites using liquid impregnation techniques. Among other points, he demonstrated that by adjusting the rheological properties, these materials can be processed just like conventional thermoset matrices. Additionally, as it is one of the key properties of dynamic polymer networks, molecular-level modifications enabled repair and reshaping.
Niklas, it was a pleasure to have you at the IVW and I am looking forward to future discussions and collaborations!
Dr. Niklas Lorenz and Dr. Andreas Klingler (Copyright protected)
October, 5th 2024: Miscellaneous
Since I have been at the YRS in early August, two months have already passed, bringing us through the summer. The weather is now turning colder and rainier; even though I am not sure if climate change might eventually bring us another couple of hot days. Nowadays, you never know...
While there hasn’t been a specific "highlight" for the blog, a lot of developments are underway that may bear fruit later. This includes (i) the submission of a project proposal in the field of vitrimers and aircraft (details to follow once a decision on funding has been made), (ii) a submission of a project proposal to a well-known foundation programme and (iii) an ongoing preparation of a larger project proposal, which will keep me busy until Christmas. Also, (iv) my colleague Prof. Krüger and I wrote a book chapter on "Vitrimers: new types of reshapable, repairable and recyclable polymer matrices – a physical-technical perspective" that already went through the review process. Currently, I am waiting for a notification from the editor. Even more, on October 29th, (v) my dear colleague Dr. Niklas Lorenz from the TU Delft in the Netherlands will give a talk at IVW on his recent research results on vitrimer-based disulphide based composites (see one of his last publications on this topic here.)
On a personal level, I had a great summer bringing some positive changes that took up my time for a few weeks.
Looking ahead, in the remaining time of my Walter Benjamin programme (until April 2025), I’ll be participating in the Leibniz Leadership Academy, which starts on December 2nd in Berlin. I'm excited about the two-and-a-half-day event and am really looking forward to it.
Additionally, I had the idea to host a mini-symposium on vitrimers. The institute has already approved the event, and a date has been set. I’ll keep the blog updated on these activities.
August, 1st 2024: Young Researcher Symposium RPTU
The Young Researcher Symposium (YRS) at RPTU is a biennial event hosted by the TU-Nachwuchsring and the High Performance Center Simulation and Software Based Innovation. The symposium provides a platform for young researchers with all kinds of scientific backgrounds to compete against each other in talks and poster pitching/presentation. "The goal is not only to provide scientific insights into projects of young researchers in a comprehensible way for non-experts, but also, to make the presentations as entertaining, interesting and exciting as possible. In addition, the coffee breaks as well as the get-together following the event, will also be a chance to network and are the perfect opportunity to obtain scientific input from other areas."
As an advisor to the Workshops & Coaching committee of the TU Nachwuchsring, I was participating as a jury member for the poster presentations. Out of 25 posters, the three best poster poresentations were chose. One of them Maximilian Eckrich, a PhD student at IVW.
It was a great event and I can only emphasize to every PhD student and early-stage postdoc how important it is to actively engage in scientific exchange and networking. In the current case, the YRS is a perfect platform.
from left to right: Dr. Andreas Klingler, Valentine Domengie, Maximilan Eckrich, Mohamadreza Tabrizi (all IVW, Copyright protected)
July, 24-26 2024: Visit from Dr. Yuan Chen from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)
Just before the COVID pendamic in the second half of 2019, I was a visiting PhD student at the University of Sydney in Australia; more specifically at the Centre for Advanced Materials Technology (CAMT), invited by Prof. Lin Ye. That was when I first met Dr. Yuan Chen, at that time a postdoctoral fellow at CAMT. During the pandemic, he joined the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), China, and is currently an Assistant Professor (tenure track), focussing on structure, modelling and mechanics of 3D printed fibre reinforced composites.
5 years later, Dr. Chen spend a three-day stay at the IVW and gave an inspiring talk on "Modelling 3D printed composite structures with complex continuous fibre paths", which was followed by quite some discussions.
Yuan, it was great to meeting you again and especially that you took the time and the effort to visit me and the IVW.
Dr. Yuan Chen and Dr. Andreas Klingler (Copyright protected)
July, 8th 2024: Participant of the next "Developing Leadership” programme of the Leibniz Leadership Academy
"The Leibniz Leadership Academy aims to strengthen the effectiveness of leaders in the Leibniz Association and work towards a modern leadership culture." Therefore, it offers three different leadership programmes for different career stages.
As IVW is part of the Leibniz Association, I am very happy that I have been selected to participate in the next "Developing Leadership" programme starting in December 2024, especially since only one person per institute can participate in the programme at the same time. Also, IVW covers all costs and provides funding for this opportunity! The Developing Leadership programme "comprises four two-day in-person modules, interspersed with two two-hour online sessions (“digital stopovers”)".
I am very much looking forward to learn more about leadership in academia and will try to gain as much as I can from this programme.
July, 5th 2024: Co-hosting a special session on vitrimer composites at ECCM
Together with Dr. Markus Wolfahrt (Polymer Competence Center Leoben, Austria) and Prof. Philippe Olivier (Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées, France), I was hosting a special session on vitrimer-based composites at the European Conference on Composite Materials in Nantes, France.
The session comprised 10 talks by renowend experts in the field and was well attended throughout.
(Pictures are copyright protected!)
July, 2-5 2024: European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM), Nantes, France
Time is an invariant - immediately after returning from my research stay at the PCCL in Leoben, I visited the famous ECCM in Nantes, France together with a lot of colleaguees from IVW. It was an interesting conference with more than 1000 attandees that covered all aspects of composite materials ranging from rather fundamental aspects to manufacturing and application. I contributed a talk titled "The vitrimer transition phenomenon and its consequences for polymer composite materials".
The conference proceedings can be found here.
The pictures are copyright protected!
June, 5-6 2024: Repairtecture Kick-Off Meeting
Today, the kick-off meeting for the Repairtecture project took place, coordinated by the Polymer Competence Center Leoben (PCCL).
In the next four years, "Repairtecture (...) will induce a scientific and technological step-change in repairable and refurbishable polymer components. The unprecedented combination of stimuli-triggered molecular functions with reliable properties and modular architectures is expected to bridge environmental sustainability and economic efficiency with advanced repair/remanufacture processes." The project consortium comprises 8 scientific and 11 industry partners. Since I am currently on a research stay at the PCCL, Dr. Bernd Wetzel and I presented the IVW approach to push the research on dynamic polymer networks on a new level. The IVW will use a fracture mechanics and a thermo-optics approach to investigate the controlled activation and deactivation of dynamic bond exchange on the bonding and debonding properties of dynamic polymer networks.
May, 27th 2024: Giving a talk at the Technical University Graz
Today, I had the chance to talk about my research at the TU Graz, at the branch site of the PCCL at the "Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies". The talk was followed by an interesting discussion and showed again the number of utmost interesting quetions that the field of dynamic polymer networks offers.
Thanks a lot for having had me, especially to Dr. Elisabeth Rossegger for the organization and the great hospitality!
Graz from the top of the Schlossberg, ©AK2024
May, 17th 2024: SURE-Poly Workshop
Currently, I am on a research stay at the Polymer Competence Center in Leoben, Austria, (a separate blog post will follow) and had the chance to participate as a guest in a workshop on recyclable, bio-based thermoset plastics. The workshop took place in the framework of the project "Sustainable and Recyclable Polymeric Thermosets", a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) funded by the European Union. It focussed on high quality presentations on bio-based polymers, architectured biomaterials for targeted cell growth, advances in photopolymerization and especially dynamic polymer networks including new, bio-based catalysts, local, photo-induced control of polymer dynamics and electrically conductive vitrimers.
May, 08th 2024: Research Stay at the Polymer Competence Center in Leoben, Austria
Starting at the beginning of May, I have been on a research stay at the Polymer Competence Center in Leoben, Austria, with Priv.-Doz. DI Dr. Sandra Schlögl. In the next 5 weeks, will will continue some works on the effect of nanoparticle modifications on vitrimer flow properties. You can find some non-scientific insights into Leoben and the beautiful Steiermark here.
May 2024: Half time - Review & Preview
"Time is flying", they say, and in this case it means it is already half time of the WBS project - only one more year to go. In the last year, I have published four papers (three of them are published open acces and all of the research data has been made publicly available on Zenodo), participated in the EUPOC conference in Bertinoro, Italy, have visited Prof. Daniel Schmidt from the LIST and member of the project's advisory board and have had uncountable discussions on vitrimer chemistry, vitrimer physics and the application of these materials to established or new technologies with colleagues from academia and industry. Also, I am further involved in teaching activities at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau. Hence, at least from my current perspective, it was intense and went well so far.
As a preview, in opposite to the half-time activities in soccer, i.e. resting, I am not taking a break, but will be on a research stay for a couple of weeks at the Polymer Competence Center in Leoben, Austria, with Priv.-Doz. DI Dr. Sandra Schlögl, a well-known expert in the field of vitrimers. I am really looking forward to the discussions and new and different perspectives on dynamic polymer networks. Shortly afterwards, in July, it is time to go to the ECCM conference in Nantes, France and host the special session on vitrimers together with colleagues, amongst others Markus Wolfahrt, from the PCCL. Then, besides the main WBS-project activities, I will have to think about future activities and how we can built up on the learnt matter.
I am definetly looking forward to the second half of the DFG-funded WBS project on "Malleability of highly cross-linked polymers – an investigation of the topology freezing phenomenon of Vitrimers via static and dynamic means and its relevance for the solution of technological challenges".
April, 30th 2024: New publication in ACS Macromolecules
It has been quite a year so far and we are currently collecting the results from some hard work: Our new publication "Vitrimer Transition Phenomena from the Perspective of Thermal Volume Expansion and Shape (In)stability", trying to give more insights into the transition phenomena acommpanying vitrimers when they become malleable, has just been published in ACS Macromolecules. You can find the article here. As always, the research data has been published as well at Zenodo.
April, 22nd 2024: Guest lecture from Dr. Rafael J. Jiménez Riobóo on Brillouin Spectroscopy
Yesterday, I had the pleasure to welcome Rafael J. Jiménez Riobóo at the IVW. He is an expert on Brillouin Spectroscopy and heading the Brillouin Spectroscopy lab at the Instituto de Ciencia de Materials de Madrid (ICMM) in Spain.
Rafael gave us a comprehensive insight into the basics of Brillouin spectroscopy and microscopy. Using examples from his own research at the ICMM, he impressively demonstrated the possibilities of the measurement method.
Brillouin spectroscopy is an optical measurement method (hypersonic method) that can e.g. be used to determine the E and G moduli of polymers through the inelastic scattering of photons at density fluctuations. At the same time, insights can be gained into the optical properties of a material. The topic is particularly interesting when it comes to temperature- and/or force-induced changes of polymers.
It was a pleasure having you, Rafael!
from left to right: Dr. Andreas Klingler, Dr. Rafael J. Jiménez Riobóo, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jan-Kristian Krüger, Dr. Bernd Wetzel (Copyright protected)
April, 9th - 10th 2024: Visiting the SAMPE Symposium in Karlsruhe, Germany
As a local coordinator for SAMPE activities in Kaiserslautern, I have visited the annual SAMPE Symposium, this year in Karlsruhe. It was a highly interesting symposium covering topics in the framework of "Virtual goes real - efficient process chains".
March, 29th 2024: New publication in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
One of the attributs a researcher has to have is patience. The new publication "Temperature-Controlled Molecular Bonding Hysteresis: Interphase Dynamics of a Nanoparticle-Modified Polymer Network" is based on data that was collected during the time of my PhD studies. At that time, we did not consider them as priority and they were put into the drawer. However, today the topic gained new relevance, especially with regard to the class of dynamic polymer networks that are inherently "dynamic". Here, we report an interesting optical feature between nanoparticles and a polymer matrix, which is related to the respective interphase bond strength. The research data is available at a Zenodo data repository.
March, 21st 2024: Open data - Data publications on Zenodo.org
Publishing the own research in a renowned journal is one of the great things as an academic. However, it is a long path from a reserach concept, designing the experiment, aquiring the data, analysing it to a final publication. The concept of open data is to make most of this path publicly available. This helps on one hand to enhance the trust in the published data, but also that others can use it as well. For this purpose Zenodo (an open data repository developed under the European OpenAIRE program and operated by CERN, Wikipedia) offers the possibility to upload and share research data and even cite it, since it assigns a DOI to the data sets. With the start of the Walter Benjamin project, I decided to follow the pathway of open data and provide the research data behind the journal publications at my Zenodo profile.
March, 10th 2024: Published in Elsevier's journal Polymer
"The thermo-optical coefficient as an alternative probe for the structural arrest of polymeric glass formers" is the second paper that has been published in the framework of the WBS research project on the topology freezing phenomenon of vitrimers. It describes a rather surprising experimental effect that accompanies "high frequency" TMOR measurements of polymers. We found that it is possible to access the temperature-dependendent shear properties of polymers and gain a perspective on the structural arrest of polymers, i.e. the dynamic glass transition temperature. The research data is made available via Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10040654
February, 07th 20204: Visit from Melbourne (Australia)
Yesterday, Tuyen (Jane) Tran, a PhD student in her final year from Swinburn University was visiting IVW and gave a talk on bio-based vitrimer composite materials. The imine-based carbon composite can be easily recycled and dissolves e.g. in an amine. After reprocessing, it regains its original properties and an unaltered glass transition of about 85 °C. The talk was followed by fruitful discussions.
it was a pleasure having you, Jane!
January, 31st 2024: Review meeting
A crucial part of the Walter-Benjamin position/project is to regulary discuss, content- and ornaizational-wise, the current status of the project with highly experienced scientists. Today, I met two of the professors who are part of my "advisory board", with Prof. Daniel Schmidt (LIST, Luxembourg) and Prof. Jan-Kristian Krüger (Saarland University and IVW) in an online meeting. We discussed the last experimental findings and potential next steps.
January, 11th 2024: The first paper within the Walter-Benjamin project has been published in Polymer Testing.
The paper, titled "Thermal volume expansion as seen by Temperature-modulated optical refractometry, Oscillating dilatometry and Thermo-mechanical analysis", revisits the experimental assessment of the thermal volume expansion behaviour via the novel technique of Temperature-modulated optical refractometry (TMOR) and compares it to two classical dilatometry techniques: Oscillating dilatometry (OD) and Thermo-mechanical analysis (TMA). The controlled combination of TMOR and TMA allows differentiating between a “true” thermal volume expansion behaviour and additional shape changing effects. This experimental approach will help to access and understand the shape changing nature of vitrimers, which is a adressed in a currently submitted manuscript. The respective data publication can be found at https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.8424580
December, 5th 2023: Visiting the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) in Hautcharage, Luxembourg
Thanks to the initiative of Prof. Dr. Pierre Seck (University of Luxembourg, second from left) and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jan-Kristian Krüger (Leibniz-Institute for Composite Materials & Saarland University, second from right), I had the chance to visit the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST). We got a tour through the labs at Hautcharage from Dr. Stephan Westermann (Head of the Functional Polymers unit, left), and I had the chance to finally meet Prof. Dr. Daniel F. Schmidt (Group leader Sustainable Polymers Group, right) who is part of my advisory board of the WBS project.
The picture is copyright protected!
November, 1st 2023: Special session on "Vitrimer matrix composites" at the 21st European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM) in July 2024 in Nantes, France.
I am happy to announce that I am part of the organizing team of a special session on "Vitrimer matrix composites" at the bianual 21st European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM) in July 2024 in Nantes, France.
Dear Colleague,
As part of the 21st European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM21) in Nantes (France) from 2-5 July 2024, we are happy to announce that we are organizing a special session on “Vitrimer matrix composites”.
Since the exciting field of vitrimers and vitrimer composites is quickly evolving, it is the ambition of the special session to gather the experts in the field and discuss current challenges, future trends and applications of vitrimer matrix composites from the perspectives of engineering, physics and chemistry. This means vitrimer based composites shall be addressed with regard to processing (initial manufacturing and reprocessing), design (new types of vitrimers, bio-based vitrimers, hybrid composites,…) and experimental characterization (chemical, thermal, mechanical, fracture, fatigue,…).
Considering your expertise in this research area, we would like to invite you to submit an abstract for this session. The submission deadline is the December 30th, 2023: https://eccm21.org/abstracts/
Please feel free to share this invitation with interested colleagues or contacts.
We are looking forward to seeing you in Nantes in July 2024!
Best wishes,
Mathias Destarac, Andreas Klingler, Philippe Olivier, Markus Wolfahrt
May, 14th to May, 18th 2023: First conference
Immediately after the project has started, I had the opportunity to give a talk on "Vitrimer phase transitions from the perspective of ultra-slow volume changes" at the 2023 EUPOC Conference on Dynamic Polymer Networks in Bertinoro, Italy.
The conference took place in the framework of the Italien polymer society's (AIM) series of conferences (EUPOC). The book of abstracts can be found here.
The pictures are copyright protected!
Contact:
Contact:
Dr. Andreas Klingler
Leibniz-Institut fuer Verbundwerkstoffe GmbH
Erwin-Schroedinger-Strasse 58
67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
E-Mail: andreas.klingler@ivw.uni-kl.de
Phone: +49 (0) 631 2017 414
last updated: 23.04.2025
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