Organic and Biomaterials Chemistry Part 1: An Introduction to Polymer Chemistry
Explore the fundamental chemical concepts underlying the synthesis, properties, and design of a wide variety of organic materials important for engineering applications.
Course Information
Certificate Track
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About this Course
Organic and Biomaterials Chemistry is a self-paced online course that focuses on the chemistry and chemical structure-property relationships of soft synthetic and biologically derived materials.
Developed for engineers, scientists, and university-level STEM students interested in learning more about polymer, biomaterials, and organic chemistry from a materials science and engineering perspective, this course aims to help you develop a fundamental understanding of the molecular nature of materials.
This module is the first in a series of three modules based on the MIT course 3.034: Organic and Materials Chemistry. Part 1 of the course, An Introduction to Polymer Chemistry, will focus on methods for preparing synthetic polymers by step- and chain-growth polymerization, polymerization kinetics, and practical considerations of running a polymerization reaction.
What you'll learn
- Explore the polymer descriptors that allow researchers to control polymer properties (e.g. molecular weight, dispersity, and topology).
- Understand the mechanisms of step-growth and chain-growth polymerization.
- Explain how varying reaction parameters such as temperature and solvent choice can affect the outcome of a polymerization reaction.
Prerequisites
- University-level Introductory Chemistry or 3.091x: Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry
- University-level Calculus
Meet your instructors
Rob Macfarlane
Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Prof. Rob Macfarlane is an Associate Professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. His research focuses on developing a set of design principles for synthesizing new inorganic/organic composite materials, where nanoscale structure can be manipulated to tune the emergent physical properties of a bulk material. These structures have the potential to significantly impact energy-related research via light manipulation (e.g. photonic band gaps or plasmonic metamaterials), electronic device fabrication (e.g. semiconducting substrates or data storage devices), and environmental and medical research (e.g. hydrogels for sustained drug delivery).
