With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry program in the Division of Chemistry, Dr. Aleksandr V. Zhukhovitskiy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is developing methods to prepare polymeric materials with a high content of nitrogen atoms embedded within the polymer chains. Polymers form key components of plastics and rubber materials that are, in turn, at the heart of innumerable modern technologies: from vehicle parts to food packaging. Among existing synthetic commodity polymers, most are exclusively composed of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. In contrast, Nature’s polymers like proteins have a high content of nitrogen, which is crucial to their remarkable versatility. While some examples of nitrogen-rich synthetic polymers do exist and are even produced industrially (for example, nylons and polyurethanes) the scope of these materials is relatively small, and most lack structural precision, which limits their applications. Previous research led by Dr. Zhukhovitskiy and supported by this program demonstrated that iridium-based catalysts can enable the ring-opening polymerization of cyclic carbodiimides—moieties, wherein a carbon atom is linked to two nitrogen atoms via double bonds—to produce poly(carbodiimide)s that can be readily transformed into an assortment of other valuable polymer classes. This research seeks to improve the precision of this process, as well as to develop catalysts based on alternative, more abundant transi