Chinese chemical researcher Dr. Jie Li is Alexander von Humboldt guest researcher at DWI

03.03.2021

Dr. Jie Li from China has received a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is working as a visiting scientist in the group of Prof. Dr. Stefan Hecht and focuses on the development of versatile photoswitchable catalysts for the synthesis of sustainable polymers with improved properties. Starting in March 2021, he will be funded for a period of 2 years.

The steady scarcity of fossil fuels and the continuously increasing demand for natural resources, provide reasons for pushing the development of renewable building blocks and materials. Such new artificial, functional, and degradable building blocks should be able to be assembled into innovative or better materials. These, in turn, are ideally capable of interacting with their environment and responding to specific internal and external signals, such as light.

Light is exceptional due to its superior spatial and temporal resolution, precise energy (wavelength and intensity), traceless character, and ease of use. Ji Li's main goal is to develop novel photoswitchable metallic or organic catalyst systems to produce new degradable polymers. These have different tacticity as required, meaning that the side chains of the polymer point spatially in different directions. His goal is to be able to switch the chiral environment of the catalytically active metal center by light in situ to obtain atactic (the side chains are randomly arranged) or isotactic (enriched) block polymers where all side chains point in one direction. This is more energy efficient and only a single catalyst is needed.

Jie Li completed his PhD in applied chemistry at Dalian University of Technology (China) in 2019. During his previous research, he mainly focused on the precise control of macromolecular stereochemistry, which has great influence on polymer properties. Jie Li worked at Dalian University of Technlogy as a research assistant. Here he focused on the synthesis of photoresponsive polyesters.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables highly qualified foreign researchers holding doctorates to carry out a research project of their own choice in Germany as a part of a Humboldt Fellowship. The sponsored scientists and scholars choose the respective hosts themselves. The number of Humboldt fellows is therefore an important indicator of international contacts and the reputation of the institution. In addition to Dr. Jie Li, the DWI hosts three other Alexander von Humboldt fellows since 2020: Dr. Ulvi Karaca, who also works in the research group of Prof. Dr. Stefan Hecht, as well as Dr. Fahimeh Charbgoo and Dr. Minjun Xuan. They are researching in the group of Prof. Dr. Andreas Herrmann.