Materials science is an area of strong research focus in the Chemistry Department and in related departments. Multiple faculty have specific research concentration in this area, as well as a number of adjunct faculty from Polymer Science & Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Physics. Materials science is extremely interdisciplinary, with needs for theoretical modeling of electronic and structural properties, synthetic organic and inorganic expertise, analysis of individual molecules and assemblages of molecules, engineering of intermolecular interactions, and the fabrication of actual test devices. As a result, students and researchers in this area have excellent career opportunities and are in demand for many local, national, and international collaborative ventures, and cutting edge company technologies.

Chemistry Department faculty whose research focuses on molecular and polymer based materials have available a wide variety of instrumental and analytical facilities, both among individual faculty and in departmental or university instrumentation centers. For example, the facilities of the NSF-funded
Materials Research Science & Engineering Center (MRSEC) in the Department of Polymer Science & Engineering are available through members of that program, and by arrangement with the Director of MRSEC. Students gain hands-on experience, and also participate in collaborative ventures between groups and with industry. Our department also welcomes overtures from companies to work collaboratively on aspects of materials chemistry and catalysis that are difficult for a company to pursue (please feel free to contact the department head with questions about appropriate research group expertise). Faculty in the chemistry of materials area are particularly collaborative internationally, including extensive interchange with scientists in the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain, Russia, and Germany. We have had a number of international exchange students and scholars come to our campus to work in areas of polymer, materials, and catalysis science during the past decade.

Catalysis is a vital part of molecular synthesis, and is often related to development of new heterogeneous material preparations, as well as new soluble systems. The range of catalytic interest in our department is broad, ranging from the study of enzymology, to the modeling of adsorption and reactivity in molecular pores and on surfaces, to the development of entirely new catalytic systems that aim to replace expensive noble metals with cheaper but still-effective ones. Both molecular and polymer/solid state catalysts are being investigated by a number of groups.

For participating faculty see Research Matrix.