Tina Lin stands in a lab and stretches a polymer she created. She is wearing a lab coat, nitrile gloves and glasses.

Thread By Thread, Lin Rethinks the Fabric of Material Design

By Kirsten Heuring Email Kirsten Heuring

Heidi Opdyke

Polymers are everywhere. They give tires their toughness, make plasticware lightweight and durable and lend nylon clothes their stretch and strength. Tina Lin is designing new ways to build and customize these materials at the molecular level.

鈥淧olymers are like threads, and polymer networks are a bunch of those strands that are locked together to form a fabric,鈥� said Lin, a Ph.D. student in 麻豆村鈥檚 Department of Chemistry. 鈥淲hen they鈥檙e all woven together, they have different properties. I want to see what would happen to the behavior of the cloth if each strand didn't just have two ends 鈥� but more.鈥�

Lin uses computational models and lab experiments to see how individual strands present in polymer networks 鈥� can be rearranged for different properties. By adjusting the methods she uses to bind the network together, she can create materials with nearly identical chemical compositions but different potential uses.

Lin achieves this by changing components known as initiators and crosslinkers. Initiators start the polymerization process, and crosslinkers allow the polymer chains to stick together. By altering how the initiator and crosslinkers are connected, Lin influences how the materials behave, even though they have the same basic parts.

If Lin can characterize the ways that polymer networks are formed, researchers will be able to design a range of materials from a single monomer. This means faster development, lower costs and more sustainable production.

鈥淚鈥檇 really like to provide information on how formulations can be changed,鈥� Lin said. 鈥淭he question is always: how do we get better performance without losing out on other favorable properties? I鈥檓 hoping what I鈥檓 doing will shed some light on how chemists can change the intrinsic structure of materials.鈥澛�

Lin works with Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, J.C. Warner University Professor of Natural Sciences, who discovered a polymer synthetic method known as atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), which is commonly used in polymer production today. Matyjaszewski said Lin鈥檚 research has novel applications.

鈥淭ina attacks the most challenging problems,鈥� Matyjaszewski said. 鈥淪he is very accurate and precise in her research.鈥�

In addition to her research, Lin plays a vital leadership role in the lab and to the wider graduate student community. She manages operations in the Matyjaszewski group of 17 researchers. She is also a member of the Graduate Student Assembly.

鈥淭ina cares very much about safety in our lab of 12 graduate students and 5 postdocs,鈥� Matyjaszewski said. 鈥淓verybody respects her, witnessing how much she cares about others. She is a role model and exemplary citizen of our chemistry department.鈥�

For her efforts, Lin earned the McWilliams Fellowship, which supports two graduate students per year conducting cutting-edge research.

鈥淚鈥檓 super excited,鈥� Lin said. 鈥淚 want chemists to have more control over the kinds of materials we use and what we鈥檙e making, and we鈥檙e always looking to improve the technology.