Yesterday I met yet another “burnt out” graduate student and having gone through a similar episode myself, I’d like to thread a few thoughts here while it’s fresh. Please feel free to chip in. #PhDChat 1/8 First of all, feeling exhausted in research is very common. Even at other academic levels or non-academic jobs. A quirky nice read on what life has in store for us is Mark Manson’s bestseller: amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not…

None other than Rahul @banerjee_r is now up taking stage for COFs industry prospect. He was asked to deliver cheaper and more stable porous materials than zeolites! #POLYMATsptl Rahul takes on long standing challenges in COFs, one by one. First is the stability. #POLYMATsptl

Will @Dichtel is getting the last day started with remarkable work on the improved synthesis of COFs. He won’t touch the apps since many talked earlier and there’s a lot to discuss for the COF mechanisms #POLYMATsptl How crystalline are COFs? Particles are typically in microns and roughly 50 nm thick #POLYMATsptl

Ron Smaldone (@ronsmaldone) cracks up the post lunch sleepy crowd by the bootie (boot selfie) and COFs for girls sign he discovered in San Sebastián #POLYMATSptl How one can game the synthetic toolbox to overcome issues in COF synthesis, is his drive, and then the imine azine mechanism control on the spot by favoring thermodynamic product #POLYMATsptl

Omar Yaghi opens up second day with candid insights into COF discovery, including a Romeo and Juliet story #POLYMATsptl Diamondoid frameworks will always be interpenetrated because of the self dual nature of diamond says Omar #POLYMATsptl

Dirk Guldi of FAU takes the stage for his work on 2D materials for photochemical charge separations #POLYMATsptl The more steeply curved the carbon sheets the more p-doped character they’re. #POLYMATsptl

How to prove you’ve made 500,000 bonds per micron sq.? There’s no single analytical tool but one can combine synchrotron, xrd kinetics study and volume contraction, and a whole lot of optimism - Dieter Schlüter #POLYMATsptl It turns out anthracene cages cross-link in a random fashion #POLYMATsptl