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MSE Seminar: “Tuning the Dielectric Constant of Polymeric Materials with Zwitterions”

September 10 at 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Details
Date: September 10, 2026
Time: 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Event Category: Seminar
Event Tags:
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  • Organizer
    Materials Science and Engineering
    215-898-8337
    info-mse@engineering.upenn.edu
    View Website
    Venue
    Wu and Chen Auditorium (Room 101), Levine Hall 3330 Walnut Street
    Philadelphia
    PA 19104
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    Advances in capacitors, batteries, actuators, ion-transport membranes, sensors and triboelectric nanogenerators require materials with high dielectric constants (εs). Synthesis of high εs soft materials is currently approached by three methods: 1) swelling polymeric materials with high dielectric constant polar liquids, 2) addition of inorganic fillers, or 3) chemically modifying materials with polar substituents. Although there has been success with increasing εs in materials, the increases in εs have been minimal, the additives/functional groups negatively affect the mechanical properties, and/or there is a reduction in the breakdown strength. An alternative approach is to add zwitterionic liquids (i.e., dielectricizers) that exhibit exceptionally high dielectric constants with negligible volatility. The presentation will discuss the connection between zwitterionic molecular modifications and dielectric constant, demonstrating that it is possible to achieve one of the highest dielectric constants among all liquids (~ 350 at 293 K). The main molecular tuning parameters for maximizing zwitterionic liquid dielectric constant are increasing the cation-anion linkage length and using delocalized charged groups, leading to an enlargement of the molecular dipole and a homogenous liquid morphology, respectively. Zwitterion modifications to polymers also increases the dielectric constant of soft materials. Covalently attaching high εs zwitterions into polymer networks will help with processing while maintaining desired mechanical properties. Functionalizing polymers with zwitterionic side groups increases εs by 2X (e.g., 5 → 10), which is significant, but less than the upper limit predicted knowing the zwitterion mole fraction in the polymer. Expanding the scope of high εs materials to zwitterionic polymers will enable tuning of performance using zwitterion chemistry as well as polymeric material composition and thermomechanical properties. The extremely high dielectric constant accessible with zwitterions paves new avenues for dielectric polymer materials.

    Speaker

    Robert J. Hickey, The Penn State University

    Robert J. Hickey

    Associate Professor, The Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University

    Professor Rob Hickey is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry at Widener University (2007) and the University of Pennsylvania (2013), respectively. Before starting his independent career at Penn State in 2016, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota (2013 – 2016). The Hickey group investigates non-equilibrium chemical and self-assembly methods to create hierarchically ordered polymeric materials. Rob has received the John H. Dillon Medal from APS (2025), the Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2023), the NSF CAREER Award (2020), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Prize (2019), and he was recognized as an ACS PMSE Young Investigator in 2019.