Kaylee Murphy
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCHER
Chemical Engineering & BioEngineering Department
Bio
Kaylee grew up in Ludlow, Massachusetts where she swam competitively for her town team, her high school team, and a USA Swimming team.
Currently, she is an undergraduate at UNH majoring in Chemical Engineering. Kaylee joined the Tsavalas lab in 2024 where, over the summer, she will be working on functionalizing polymer particles such that they can be dispersed in a bio-derived hydrogel and have their interface crosslinked to the gel upon demand. This we hypothesize will lead to a greater range of viscoelastic properties than that of the hydrogel itself. The key is to make the interfacial crosslinking stimuli responsive on demand and potentially also to allow for an orthogonal stimuli to initiate degradation, also on demand.
Kaylee also aspires to begin her own research project focusing on developing a biodegradable polymer that can be synthesized into sheets of fabric and made into clothing.... AND ... has just recently (Nov 2024) been awarded a fully funded (UNH Hamel Research Center - Thank you!!!) international research experience abroad for 9-weeks in San Sebastián, Spain at the University of the Basque Country, POLYMAT group, in summer 2025! See Project 2 below for a bit more description!
Project 1: Hydrophilic Deep Eutectic Mixtures (2024)
The "5th principle of Green Chemistry" speaks to the need for safer solvents. Deep eutectic mixtures/solvents (DES) have been a recent (2003) proposed solution (pun intended!) to this challenge. DES mixtures consist of a hydrogen bond acceptor molecule and a hydrogen bond donor molecule in a particular ratio that they form a complex which produces a significant depression in the melting point of the mixture. The classic example is choline chloride (m.p. 300 C) and urea (m.p. 134 C), which when combined in a molar ratio of 1:2 produce a complex which has a melting point of 12 - 25 C (depending on moisture content). This, being below room temperature, means the combination and grinding of two solids together produces a liquid (at room temperature). Mixing one solute with another normally does decrease the melting point of the major fraction, but in these systems the depression is significantly lower when this 'magic' ratio is achieved so as to allow for this eutectic complex to form. DES have been advantaged for a variety of application.
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This is a new 'field' for the Tsavalas group, and came about via a collaboration with the Ben group of University of Ottawa (where the Tsavalas group contributes via differential scanning calorimetry analysis and interpretation (as per the image to the left), which came to be as certain DES mixtures are also useful in the context of antifreeze behavior for cryoprotection (a mutually active field for both the Ben and Tsavalas groups).
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Moreover, a great colleague and friend of Tsavalas, Prof. Stefan Bon of Warwick University in the UK recently has published hydrophobic and glassy DES mixtures as potential polymer analogs (with tailorable properties similar to a range of polymers, and from sustainable reagents, AND with inherent degradability (as they are simply supramolecular structures of small molecules). Read this to get excited ... and Tsavalas and Bon are brainstorming collaborations on the topic forward.
Stay tuned for more!
Project 2: Green Colloidal Electrospinning of Degradable Nanofibers (2025)
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Kaylee Murphy, Dr. John Tsavalas (University of New Hampshire, CHBE and CHEM, USA)
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Dr. Edurne Gonzaléz, Dr. Miren Aguirre (University of the Basque Country, Chemical Engineering, Spain)
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Summer Research Experience for Ms. Kaylee Murphy at The University of the Basque Country within the POLYMAT research center, Summer 2025
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Kaylee will be incorporated into POLYMAT's ongoing research on Green Electrospinning of biobased and degradable polymers in the Polymerization Process Group. Her main objectives will be to synthesize degradable crosslinkers, biobased latexes and to perform green electrospinning experiments as well as degradability tests. All this will provide her with hands-on experience and valuable insights into biobased and degradable waterborne materials - which, in turn, she intends to bring back to the Tsavalas lab to initiate the insertion of degradability of polymers into our toolbox and synthetic paths forward.
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Dr. Miren Aguirre is an Associate Professor in the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU and coordinator of Biobased and Degradable Polymer Dispersions in POLYMAT. On the other hand, Dr. Edurne Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor in the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU and expert on both synthesis of biobased waterborne latexes as well as in Green Electrospining.