Having spent most of my time in the research lab during my PhD, I am grateful to have been selected to organise a tabletop activity and enjoy a day outside the lab to share our science with the public. On Saturday 14th June at the 2025 Universally Manchester Festival, along with James Ormson, Oswald Philipsen, Ronak Singha and Dr Robert Nixon, we delivered interactive demonstrations and poster presentations to showcase how our research in the field of polymer mechanochemistry can contribute to addressing challenges in the development of new materials. We are delighted that the interactive activities have attracted considerable interest and attention from the public.
We started with the hands-on activities letting the audience stretch, hammer, or write with an inkless pen on a piece of PDMS material (a type of silicone) containing spiropyran mechanophores (force-sensitive molecules) and observe a striking reversible colour change from pale-yellow to deep purple. This demonstration allowed us to use the spiropyran ring-opening chemistry to introduce core concepts in our field of polymer mechanochemistry. The audience then repeated the activities using materials made with a nitrated spiropyran, which exhibited faster reversible colour change and helped to illustrate the idea that strategic mechanophore design can alter a materials response to force to give desired properties.
In addition to the wonderful demonstrations, we displayed two posters showcasing our group’s research and how it contributes to solve real-world challenges. The first poster, we provide an overview of the place of our research on improving polymer lifecycle by designing better polymers, including smart polymers that allow damage detection, self-healing at the usage stage, or controlled degradation at the recycling stage. On the second poster, we discuss our research mission in more detail, showing how altering material properties, designing new mechanophores and integrating the concept of supramolecular chemistry has the potential to reach beyond material applications and can advance synthesis, catalysis, biomedical devices, and much more.
Finally, we demonstrated to our 'future scientists' how we conduct experiments in our lab, using an ultrasonication probe and bath, taking them through the process from design to practice and optimisation. The festival was a great success, and we had a good time engaging with the community. We were privileged to have received keen interest and suggestions from the audience on potential real-life applications which our research could address. The public's voice and appreciation serve as ongoing motivation and innovation to our research, and we look forward to the next outreach engagement activities. Finally, we want to express our greatest gratitude to Kathryn Downey for organising the event, Professor Guillaume De Bo and the GDB team for their incredible support, and the University of Manchester for providing us with this opportunity.
Alice Weng Ieong
Acknowledgements:
Big shout out to Dr. Robert Nixon on preparing PDMS materials. Ronak Singha, Dr. Robert Nixon, Alice Weng Ieong on poster 1, James Ormson and Philipsen on poster 2. Freshly made coffee from Qianqian Cheng.
We started with the hands-on activities letting the audience stretch, hammer, or write with an inkless pen on a piece of PDMS material (a type of silicone) containing spiropyran mechanophores (force-sensitive molecules) and observe a striking reversible colour change from pale-yellow to deep purple. This demonstration allowed us to use the spiropyran ring-opening chemistry to introduce core concepts in our field of polymer mechanochemistry. The audience then repeated the activities using materials made with a nitrated spiropyran, which exhibited faster reversible colour change and helped to illustrate the idea that strategic mechanophore design can alter a materials response to force to give desired properties.
In addition to the wonderful demonstrations, we displayed two posters showcasing our group’s research and how it contributes to solve real-world challenges. The first poster, we provide an overview of the place of our research on improving polymer lifecycle by designing better polymers, including smart polymers that allow damage detection, self-healing at the usage stage, or controlled degradation at the recycling stage. On the second poster, we discuss our research mission in more detail, showing how altering material properties, designing new mechanophores and integrating the concept of supramolecular chemistry has the potential to reach beyond material applications and can advance synthesis, catalysis, biomedical devices, and much more.
Finally, we demonstrated to our 'future scientists' how we conduct experiments in our lab, using an ultrasonication probe and bath, taking them through the process from design to practice and optimisation. The festival was a great success, and we had a good time engaging with the community. We were privileged to have received keen interest and suggestions from the audience on potential real-life applications which our research could address. The public's voice and appreciation serve as ongoing motivation and innovation to our research, and we look forward to the next outreach engagement activities. Finally, we want to express our greatest gratitude to Kathryn Downey for organising the event, Professor Guillaume De Bo and the GDB team for their incredible support, and the University of Manchester for providing us with this opportunity.
Alice Weng Ieong
Acknowledgements:
Big shout out to Dr. Robert Nixon on preparing PDMS materials. Ronak Singha, Dr. Robert Nixon, Alice Weng Ieong on poster 1, James Ormson and Philipsen on poster 2. Freshly made coffee from Qianqian Cheng.
From left to right: James Ormson, Alice Weng Ieong, and Ronak Singha
From left to right: Robert Nixon, Oswald Philipsen, and Alice Weng Ieong.
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