Dr. Zhen Wang
Main Focus
Colorants are ubiquitous throughout society. However, concerns over microplastic pollution and sustainability of natural resources are driving a shift in the pigment industry, away from PET-based polymer glitters and non-renewable minerals like mica, towards reusable, recyclable, and sustainable alternatives. Block copolymer self-assembly has proven to be an effective route for the fabrication of structurally colored materials, arising from their remarkable capability to self-assemble into a diverse range of nanoscale architectures. However, despite extensive research on this topic over the past two decades, the library of polymers employed in the field has remained surprisingly limited. Most crucially for their real-world application, there has not been any exploration into viability of biocompatible and (bio)degradable monomers for block copolymers in the context of producing sustainable photonic materials.
I am particularly interested in:
- Design and synthesis of degradable block copolymers for photonics
- Optimizing and tuning polymer structures for controlled decomposition
- Structural and optical characterizations of these polymer photonics
Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Zhen Wang is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Sustainable and Bio-Inspired Materials, headed by Prof. Silvia Vignolini, at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces since 2023.
Zhen received his B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from Renmin University of China under the supervision of Prof. Yapei Wang, where he mainly worked on the self-assembly of biocompatible and biodegradable linear block copolymers, the preparation of double emulsions, and the light utilization via photothermal conversion.
He completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry in the Bio-inspired Photonics group at the University of Cambridge supervised by Prof. Silvia Vignolini. During his Ph.D. study, he developed a series of biocompatible bottlebrush block copolymers and explored their confined self-assembly within microfluidic droplets, leading to the fabrication of structurally colored pigments. By analyzing their optical response, these photonic pigments can be understood and optimized through either changing the polymer design or the processing conditions.
Transitioning to postdoctoral research, Zhen is addressing the end-of-life pathway of these bottlebrush block copolymer materials by incorporating degradable linkages, which allow for their controlled breakdown under mild conditions. His research interest focuses on the design, synthesis, and application of sustainable polymers in photonics and also recently on high refractive index polymers and soft photonics.