Research

Polymeric compounds are widely used not only plastics and rubbers, but also as highly functional materials that support electronic devices, automobiles, aircraft, and medical fields. Many of these polymers are synthesized by polymerizing vinyl monomers. In chain polymerization, highly active propagating species and monomers repeatedly react hundreds to thousands of monomers to form a single polymer. It is a very interesting chemical reaction that can control the selectivity and regularity of the reaction to an extremely high degree. However, there are many polymers that cannot be synthesized even with current polymerization technology, and they may exhibit unknown chemical and physical properties. Therefore, in this laboratory, we aim to develop original polymerization catalysts and new monomers and open up new frontiers. Specifically, we are working on the following issues.