Loi Do
University of Houston, TX·Chemistry
Polyolefins, the family of plastics that includes polyethylene and polypropylene, make up more than 60% of the plastic produced worldwide. They are light, resist water, oil and solvents, and are easy to shape.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
- Topics
polyolefins
olefin polymerization
polymer chemistry
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2026
What they work on
- Develop a cation-exchange strategy in which an olefin polymerization catalyst switches between monometallic and bimetallic forms during chain growth. The goal is controlled polymers with many chains per metal site.
- Identify conditions where cation exchange is slower than chain growth but faster than chain termination, using earth-abundant metal additives to regulate non-living coordination-insertion polymerization.
- Design a library of chiral catalysts by pairing chiral metal auxiliaries with a common catalyst platform, aiming for stereocontrolled polymerization of functional olefins and new polyolefin structures.
More about the research
Making them efficiently and with precise structures is still a chemistry problem. 'Living' catalysts control how each polymer chain grows, but each metal site yields only one chain. The product therefore carries a lot of metal and needs extra purification. 'Non-living' catalysts make many chains per metal site but offer little control over the chains they produce. The goal is to combine the advantages of both approaches, using earth-abundant metal additives, and to reach polymer structures that have not been made before.
Why it matters
Polyolefins are made on an enormous industrial scale, so more efficient catalysts could reduce the cost, energy use and environmental impact of producing them. Catalysts that make many controlled chains per metal could reduce the leftover metal that must be purified out. New stereocontrolled functional polyolefins could give plastics manufacturers materials with useful new properties.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Adam Veige
University of Florida, FL·Chemistry
Synthesize a new tungsten or molybdenum alkylidyne catalyst that polymerizes alkynes into new cyclic polymers, exploring new ligand designs and metal attachment strategies.
Ian Tonks
University of Minnesota, MN·Chemistry
Develop iron- and titanium-catalyzed multi-site proton-coupled electron transfer (MS-PCET) reactions that pull hydrogen from amines under mild conditions, producing reactive nitrene precursors for amination.
Matthew Whited
Carleton College, MN·Chemistry
Develop late-metal complexes with metal–silicon single and multiple bonds that transfer reactive nitrene and carbene groups (short-lived nitrogen and carbon fragments) onto organic substrates.
The school
University of Houston: 21 labs on PI Pages, $239M a year on research, 374 research doctorates a year.
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