Felix J. de Zwart

Felix J. de Zwart

Alumnus
University of Amsterdam

Felix J. de Zwart

Department

van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences

Contact information

Room
The E-building - E1.12.

Email address
f.j.dezwart@uva.nl

Key expertises

EPR Spectroscopy, homogeneous catalysis, open-shell organometallics, polymer chemistry.

About me

My main areas of interest are organometallic catalysis and polymer chemistry. I am especially interested in making new advances in these fields applicable to real-life problems. This includes both looking at how to move towards a circular economy through green chemistry and staying in close contact with industry to know where research is required to solve problems.

About my research

Within ARC-CBBC I currently work on new methods of cross-linking polymers using transition metal catalysis. Acrylic paints suffer from high water permeability and mediocre mechanical properties, which can be improved by introducing chemical crosslinks in the substrate. Currently no latent system exists that is able to crosslink in water as a solvent. To develop this chemistry, existing solvent based catalytic systems are being modified to function in waterborne systems. In particular the available chemical transformations are being expanded, as the known reactions such as allylic oxidation are not applicable in acrylic and biobased substrates. Photoactivated crosslinkers are currently being developed to use for the latent crosslinking through free carbenes. By improving the library of chemical transformations, it will be possible to use the carbohydrate-based building blocks that are being developed in the flagship project as the coatings of the future.