Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5400-8601
Date of Award
Winter 2022
Document Type
Thesis (Master's)
Department or Program
Chemistry
First Advisor
Katherine A. Mirica
Abstract
The long-term goal of this thesis is to design novel chemical protective garments that both shield and sense for chemical warfare agents. The overarching hypothesis of this work is that joining textiles with a chemically responsive temporary adhesive will reduce the permeability of and detect hazardous analytes across fabric boundaries. Work towards achieving this goal and testing this hypothesis is separated into two chapters. The first chapter reports the development of a self-immolative polymer, poly(phthalaldehyde), into a stimuli-responsive temporary adhesive. Developing poly(phthalaldehyde) as a robust adhesive that rapidly releases substrates would be a significant and novel contribution to the fields of self-immolative polymers and temporary adhesives. The second chapter investigates the serendipitous and unexpected observation of fluorescent emission from linear poly(phthalaldehyde) and explores the potential for using this polymer as a fluorescent sensor. Work in this chapter aims to answer the numerous questions that arose from this surprising observation about the structure-property relationships that enable fluorescence.
Recommended Citation
Yarbrough, Hana J., "Molecular Engineering of Self-Immolative Polymers as Chemically Responsive Temporary Adhesives for Protective Garments" (2022). Dartmouth College Master’s Theses. 64.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/masters_theses/64
Included in
Materials Chemistry Commons, Organic Chemistry Commons, Physical Chemistry Commons, Polymer Chemistry Commons