About

Paula L. Diaconescu joined the UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry department in 2005 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in the group of Prof. Robert Grubbs at California Institute of Technology. She obtained her Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Christopher Cummins at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working on arene-bridged complexes of uranium. Her earlier education was completed in Romania, where she earned her B.S. from the University of Bucharest and conducted research on coordination complexes of transition metals and lanthanides at University Politehnica of Bucharest. Her current research focuses on the design of reactive metal complexes with applications to small molecule activation, organic synthesis, and polymer formation. Her group at UCLA aims to develop fundamental chemical concepts and apply them directly to catalysis, with a primary emphasis on redox-switchable catalysts inspired by natural sensory and regulatory processes. The group has successfully applied this research to the controlled synthesis of multiblock copolymers, utilizing a unique chelating ferrocene ligand platform that influences metal center behavior through electron transfer and weak donor-acceptor interactions.

Research topics

• Crystallography
• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Computer science
• Polymer chemistry

Selected publications

• Plastic from CO ₂ , Water, and Electricity: Tandem Electrochemical CO ₂ Reduction and Thermochemical Ethylene‐CO Copolymerization

  Angewandte Chemie International Edition · 2025-04-07 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Converting CO 2 into industrially useful products is an appealing strategy for utilization of an abundant chemical resource. Electrochemical CO 2 reduction (eCO 2 R) offers a pathway to convert CO 2 into CO and ethylene, using renewable electricity. These products can be efficiently copolymerized by organometallic catalysts to generate polyketones. However, the conditions for these reactions are very different, presenting the challenge of coupling microenvironments typically encountered for the transformation of CO 2 into highly complex but desirable multicarbon products. Herein, we present a system to produce polyketone plastics entirely derived from CO 2 and water, where both the CO and C 2 H 4 intermediates are produced by eCO 2 R. In this system, a combination of Cu and Ag gas diffusion electrodes is used to generate a gas mixture with nearly equal concentrations of CO and C 2 H 4 , and a recirculatory CO 2 reduction loop is used to reach concentrations of above 11% each, leading to a current‐to‐polymer efficiency of up to 51% and CO 2 utilization of 14%.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An Electrochemical Approach to Aluminum‐Based Redox Switchable Ring Opening Polymerization

  ChemCatChem · 2025-04-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract We report the electrochemically switchable reactivity of (salfen)Al(O i Pr) (salfen = 1,1′‐di(2,4‐bis‐ tert ‐butyl‐salicylimino)ferrocene) toward the ring‐opening polymerization of various cyclic esters, ethers, and carbonates. Using a recently developed electrochemical system comprised of an H‐cell and a glassy carbon working electrode, an applied potential can alternate between the two redox states of the catalyst and alter monomer incorporation during ring‐opening polymerization. We discuss differences in activity and control under electrochemical conditions compared to previously studied chemical redox methods and discuss the necessity of a redox switch during certain copolymerization reactions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tuning the Degradability Profiles of Polyesters with Indium-Catalyzed Incorporation of Poly(ε-thiocaprolactone) Blocks

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025-10-06 · 1 citations

  article

  There are no examples of high molecular weight (>100 000 g/mol) poly(ε-thiocaprolactone) (PtCL), and the mechanism of ε-thiocaprolactone (tCL) polymerization with organometallic complexes has not been investigated. In this work, we demonstrate the synthesis of the highest reported molecular weight PtCL (Mn = 109 000 g/mol) by using a cationic indium thiolate catalyst formed in situ via the addition of benzyl mercaptan. The mechanism of the polymerization is thoroughly investigated and the reaction coordinate is elucidated via computational calculations; the polymerization propagates through a coordination–insertion mechanism. If the PtCL is not isolated during the polymerization, the resulting indium-PtCL macromolecule can be used as an initiator to form copolymers with poly(lactide) (PLA) and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL). Incorporating 10% PtCL in these polymers alters their degradation behavior: the hydrolytic degradation period of PLA is reduced by nearly half, while PCL becomes more resistant to hydrolysis.

  PublisherDOI

• Plastic from CO ₂ , Water, and Electricity: Tandem Electrochemical CO ₂ Reduction and Thermochemical Ethylene‐CO Copolymerization

  Angewandte Chemie · 2025-04-07 · 1 citations

  article

  Abstract Converting CO 2 into industrially useful products is an appealing strategy for utilization of an abundant chemical resource. Electrochemical CO 2 reduction (eCO 2 R) offers a pathway to convert CO 2 into CO and ethylene, using renewable electricity. These products can be efficiently copolymerized by organometallic catalysts to generate polyketones. However, the conditions for these reactions are very different, presenting the challenge of coupling microenvironments typically encountered for the transformation of CO 2 into highly complex but desirable multicarbon products. Herein, we present a system to produce polyketone plastics entirely derived from CO 2 and water, where both the CO and C 2 H 4 intermediates are produced by eCO 2 R. In this system, a combination of Cu and Ag gas diffusion electrodes is used to generate a gas mixture with nearly equal concentrations of CO and C 2 H 4 , and a recirculatory CO 2 reduction loop is used to reach concentrations of above 11% each, leading to a current‐to‐polymer efficiency of up to 51% and CO 2 utilization of 14%.

  PublisherDOI

• Using Classifiers To Predict Catalyst Design for Polyketone Microstructure

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025-01-23 · 11 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  We applied a classifier method to predict palladium catalysts for the formation of nonalternating polyketones via the copolymerization of CO and ethylene; current examples are limited to using phosphine sulfonate and diphosphazane monoxide supporting ligands. With the reported workflow, we discovered two new classes of palladium complexes capable of achieving the synthesis of nonalternating polyketones with a lower CO content than those made by known palladium catalysts. Our results show that we doubled the number of classes of palladium compounds that can catalyze the formation of this type of polymer. We envision that this methodology can be applied to accelerate catalyst discovery when selectivity is an important outcome.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Facile Synthesis of Polyhydroperoxides from Ethylene and Carbon Monoxide

  Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025-08-02 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  A synthetic strategy for preparing on-chain polyhydroperoxides is reported, utilizing the postpolymerization functionalization of polyketone. Alternating polyketones, derived from the copolymerization of ethylene and carbon monoxide, were quantitatively and selectively transformed into solid polyperoxides using aqueous hydrogen peroxide at room temperature. The complete conversion of carbonyl into peroxy groups made the resulting polyperoxide ideal for free radical graft copolymerization. As a functional polymer, polyperoxide was employed as a macroinitiator to prepare densely grafted copolymers, polyethylene-g-poly(4-methylstyrene) and polyethylene-g-poly(methyl methacrylate). Moreover, the degradability of the graft copolymer was demonstrated, further highlighting the sustainability of polyperoxide from production to application.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Electrolyte Effect on Electrochemically Controlled Polymerizations

  Synthesis · 2025-01-06 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Electrochemically controlled redox-switchable polymerization uses an electric potential to bias the monomer selectivity of a catalyst. Many ferrocene-appended catalysts can exist in two oxidation states, a neutral reduced state and an oxidized cationic state. Electrochemical generation of the oxidized cationic state produces a charged species whose counteranion is determined by the identity of the supporting electrolyte anion. Herein, the role the counteranion has on monomer selectivity and polymerization kinetics is investigated. Minimal differences in monomer selectivity in the reduced state was found, however, in the oxidized state, the coordinating ability of the counteranion greatly influenced the rate of polymerization. How activity differences governed by the choice of electrolyte can be utilized to access desired diblock copolymers is also described.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• ortho-Aromatic polyamides by ring-opening polymerization of N-carboxyanhydrides

  Chem · 2025-01-13 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Using Classifiers to Predict Catalyst Design for Polyketone Microstructure

  ChemRxiv · 2024-08-22 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  We applied a classifier method to predict palladium catalysts for producing non-alternating polyketones via the copoly-merization of CO and ethylene; current reported examples are limited to using phosphine sulfonate and diphosphazane monoxide supporting ligands. With this workflow, we were able to discover three new classes of palladium complexes capable of achieving the synthesis of non-alternating polyketones with a lower CO content than known catalysts. Our re-sults show that we more than doubled the number of known classes of compounds that can catalyze the formation of this type of polymer. We envision that this methodology can be applied to accelerate catalyst discovery when selectivity is an important outcome.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Application of a ferrocene-chelating heteroscorpionate ligand in nickel mediated radical polymerization

  Inorganic Chemistry Frontiers · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  A nickel bromide complex supported by a non-innocent ferrocene-chelating heteroscorpionate ligand, [(fc(PPh 2 )(BH(3,5-Me 2 pz) 2 )NiBr)] ((fc P,B )NiBr, fc = 1,1′-ferrocenediyl, pz = pyrazole), was synthesized and characterized.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• MRI: Acquisition of a Continuous-wave Electron-paramagnetic Resonance Spectrometer for Research and Education

  NSF · $293k · 2021–2024

• UNIQUE ADVANTAGES OF ORGANOMETALLIC SUPPORTING LIGANDS FOR METAL COMPLEXES

  NSF · $440k · 2014–2017

• CAREER: REACTIONS OF ELECTROPHILIC METAL CENTERS WITH AROMATIC HETEROCYCLES

  NSF · $590k · 2009–2014

• CCI Phase I: NSF Center for Integrated Catalysis (CIC)

  NSF · $1.8M · 2020–2024

• Switchable Catalysis as a tool for the Synthesis of Novel Multiblock Copolymers

  NSF · $817k · 2018–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Jaqueline L. Kiplinger

  Ruhr University Bochum

  1684 shared

• Oleg V. Ozerov

  Texas A&M University

  1681 shared

• Yu Tang

  Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine

  1681 shared

• Jun Chen

  Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University

  1681 shared

• Jie Gao

  Children's Hospital of Capital Institute of Pediatrics

  1681 shared

• Longshi Rao

  1681 shared

• Yi Xie

  University of Science and Technology of China

  1681 shared

• Laura Smith

  1681 shared

Labs

• Diaconescu, Paula L.PI

Education

• postdoctoral fellow, Chemistry

  California Institute of Technology

  2005

• PhD, Chemistry

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  2003

Awards & honors

• Guggenheim Fellow (2015)
• Bessel Award Humboldt Foundation (2014)
• AXE Seaborg Award
• NSF CAREER
• Sloan Fellowship