Copyright (c) 2013 University of Iowa All rights reserved. http://ir.uiowa.edu/icru/FURF2009/MathEngineering Recent Events in Posters: Mathematics and Engineering en-us Thu, 16 May 2013 15:03:41 PDT 3600 http://ir.uiowa.edu/icru/FURF2009/MathEngineering/3 http://ir.uiowa.edu/icru/FURF2009/MathEngineering/3 Furfural is a promising starting material for renewable chemicals and plastics. Furfural is derived from variety of agricultural byproducts, mainly corn stover. When furfural derivatives such as furan and 5-bromo-2-furfural are irradiated together with ultraviolet light, difuran compounds are formed through a photochemical reaction. These materials are the potential starting blocks used to synthesize biodegradable polymers with excellent mechanical properties and thermal resistance. A protected-difurfural compound has been synthesized in 50–60% yield. However, the initial reactants and solvent can be recovered and reused in a secondary reactor to increase the overall yield of the reaction. Continued research has focused on the deprotection of the compound, its conversion to an alcohol, and polymer synthesis and characterization.

]]> Olga O. Jennings et al. http://ir.uiowa.edu/icru/FURF2009/MathEngineering/2 http://ir.uiowa.edu/icru/FURF2009/MathEngineering/2 Organic semiconductors are of high interest due to a promise of low cost, flexible electronics. Solid state packing of organic semiconductors impacts electrical properties. We have shown that addition of a semiconductor co-crystal former (SCCF) impacts solid state packing by increasing pi-pi interactions between adjacent semiconductor molecules.1 Here, we report initial findings on how SCCFs with different carboxylic acids affect the solid-state packing of thiophene based semiconductors. 1Sokolov, A. N.; Friščic, T.; MacGillivray, L. R. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 2806-2807

]]> Kristin M. Kester et al. http://ir.uiowa.edu/icru/FURF2009/MathEngineering/1 http://ir.uiowa.edu/icru/FURF2009/MathEngineering/1 Charles N. Hatz