Jinjia Xu pic

Professor Xu received her B.Sc. (Hons) from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China and her PhD from the National Institute for Materials Science, Japan.  She was a postdoctoral fellow at Purdue University and the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, and held an academic position at the University of Florida prior to joining the UMSL chemistry faculty in fall 2022.
Personal Lab homepage

jxu@umsl.edu
Office: B316C
Phone: (314) 516-5311
Fax: (314) 516-5342

Research Interests

Research in the Xu Laboratory utilizes organic synthesis and polymerization methodologies to create next-generation advanced functional materials for electronic and biomedical applications.

Research interests lie at the interface of organic chemistry, polymer materials, soft matter nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering. We leverage our expertise in molecular design, synthesis, self-assembly, and development of advanced characterization strategies, to create new soft functional materials while controlling their dynamic behaviors in bulk states and interfacial properties between materials and biological systems.

Xu Research


The current ongoing research projects are broadly in Twisted but Conjugated pi-molecules as n-type Semiconductors: Molecular Design, Synthesis, Characterization and Functions (area 1); Organic Luminescent Functional Materials for the Next-Generation Optoelectronics and Biosensors (area 2); Engineering Smart Zwitterionic Biomaterials to Bridge the Bio-Electronic Interface (area 3); Advanced Smart Materials for Additive Nanomanufacturing (area 4).

The overall goal is to integrate fundamental research in novel soft matter nanotechnology and biomedical engineering with the creation of multifunctional polymers/macromolecules for advanced technologies to address problems related to energy, environment and healthcare.

Given the interdisciplinary nature of our work, students and researchers in the Xu Lab will receive broad-based training that starts from molecular design, multiple-steps organic synthesis, polymerization methodologies and extends to molecular electronics, nanofabrication, microscopy, chemical biology, photophysical characterization, UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy, physical organic chemistry techniques, molecular imaging, and cell & animal studies depending on each project’s needs.

Selected Publications

″Structural design of organic battery electrode materials: from DFT to artificial intelligence″,  T. Wu, G. Dai, J. Xu, F. Cao, X. Zhang, Y. Zhao, and Y. Qian, Rare Meta., 2023, 42, 3269.

"Room-Temperature Columnar Liquid Crystals from Twisted and Macrocyclic 9,9′-Bifluorenylidene Mesogen with Ambipolar Carrier Transport Properties", J. Xu, ACS Materials Au, 2023, 3, 450

″Influence of DETA on Thermal and Corrosion Protection Properties of GPTMS-TEOS Hybrid Coating on Q215 Steel″, S. Yang, Z. Jia, J. Xu, and R. Hong, Coatings, 2023, 13, 1145. 

 ″Preparation and Characterization of Graphene Oxide/Polyaniline/Polydopamine Nanocomposites towards Long-Term Anticorrosive Performance of Epoxy Coatings″, Y. Huang, B. Zhang, J. Wu, R. Hong, J. Xu, Polymers, 2022,14, 3355. Invited submission for Special Issue "Polymer Thin Films and Coatings".

“Zwitterionic Liquid Crystalline Polythiophene as Antibiofouling Biomaterials”, J. Xu J, Moon H, J. Xu, HO Stintim and H Lee, J. Mater. Chem. B, 2021, 9, 349. 

“Backbone Effects on the Thermoelectric Properties of Low-Bandgap Conjugated Polymers”, D. Xie, Q. Li, H. Yu, J. Xiao, T. Liu, J. Xu and G.Shao  Polymers, 2021, 13, 2486.

“Enhanced Thermoelectric Performance of Poly(3-Substituted Thiophene)/Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Composites via Polar Side Chain Modification”, L. Hao, J. Kang, J. Shi, J. Xu, J. Cao, L. Wang, Y. Liu and C. Pan C. Compos. Sci. Technol., 2020, 199, 108359.

“Structure and Doping Optimization of IDT–based Copolymers for Thermoelectrics”, T. Liu, D. Xie, J. Xu and C. Pan, Polymers, 2020, 12, 1463.

“One-Step Oxygen Plasma Etching to Induce Large Scale Nanotexture on Non-Planar PTFE Surfaces for Anti-bacterial Properties”, J. Xu, H. Moon, J. Xu, J. Lim, T. Fischer, H. McNally, HO Sintim and H. Lee, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces., 2020, 12, 26893.

 “Green Synthesis of ZnO-GO Composites for the Photocatalytic Degradation of Methylene Blue”, Y. Lin, R. Hong, H. Chen, D. Zhang and J. Xu, J. Nanomaterials, 2020, Article ID 4147357.

 “Zwitterionic Porous Conjugated Polymers as a Versatile Planform for Antibiofouling Implantable Bioelectronics”, J. Xu, H. Moon, J. Xu, HO Stintim, ACS Appl. Polym. Mater., 2020, 2, 528.

 “Synthesis and Properties Investigation of p-Bridged 9,9’-Bifluorenylidene Ladder as Electron Acceptors”, J. Xu, New J. Chem., 2020, 44, 3566.

 “Room-Temperature Columnar Liquid Crystals from Twisted and Macrocyclic 9,9’-Bifluorenylidene Mesogen with Ambipolar Charge-Carrier Transport Properties”, J. Xu, M. Yoshio, T. Kajitan,T. Fukushima and M. Takeuchi, Angew. Chem, 2020, 15, 217.

“Control Over Chiroptical and Electronic Properties of Poly(9,9’-bifluorenylidene) Bearing Chiral Side Chains”, J. Xu, Polym. Chem., 2019, 10, 6334.

 “Helically-twisted Ladder Based on 9,9’-bifluorenylidene: Synthesis, Characterization, and Carrier Transport Property”, J. Xu, A. Takai, A. Bannaron, T. Nakagawa, Y. Mastsuo, M. Sugimoto, Y. Matsushita and M. Takeuchi, Mater. Chem. Front. 2018, 2, 780.

.