John A Pojman shares his journey to a chemical career
What connects frontal polymerizations, amphiumas, and pocket protectors? They are all aspects of Dr. John Pojman’s research! John A. Pojman, Professor in the Department of Chemistry and President and CEO of Pojman Polymer Products, LLC., joins us in the School of Library and Information Sciences recording lab to share his journey through research, invention, and collaborations as well as advice to those starting their science careers. We discuss zero gravity experiments, the development of 3P QuickCure Clay, and how the high density of amphiuma salamanders here in Southern Louisiana may help scientists understand the toxic chytrid fungus!
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Transcript
Becky Carmichael
[0:00] This is LSU Experimental, where we explore exciting research occurring at Louisiana State University and learn about the individuals posing the questions. I'm Becky Carmichael, and we're joined today by Professor John Pojman faculty member of the Department of Chemistry inside the School of Library and Information Science recording lab, where he shares his multifaceted career from polymers and art to amphiumas and his pocket protector collection too.
John Pojman
[0:28] Would you like to be able to repair wood or make a sculpture or craft project with a material that you don't have to mix and allows unlimited time to work to prepare your project, while still being extremely strong and only harden when you want it to harden? Hi, I'm Professor John Pojman and I study a process called frontal polymerization. Frontal polymerization is a localized chemical process that propagates through the coupling of the heat released by the polymerization with the temperature dependence of that reaction. Simply, it's a way to make polymers into plastics, by reaction that spreads out from point of heating. The reaction gives off heat, which spreads the adjacent unreactive material, causing it to react and give off more heat which spreads out and so on. Think of it like a liquid flame. Just like a cigar burns and produces ash, frontal polymerization spreads and produces plastics. In addition to understanding how such a process works, I studied frontal polymerization to create cure on demand materials for rapid repair and for arts and crafts. Like video on demand, cure on demand means getting what you want exactly when you want it. In this case, what we want is a strong repair to hold and border wall or a piece of jewelry or sculpture. Using frontal polymerization, I created a product for wood repair called "Quick Cure Wood Filler". Instead of carefully mixing two components, like an epoxy, or waiting hours for a filler to dry, you can apply this wood filler, and only when you're ready, make it harden and by heating the surface of the filler to 100 degrees centigrade or the temperature of boiling water. No matter how deep the hole, the hardening process will propagate within seconds by frontal polymerization. Repair can be sanded, stained, painted, or drilled and is stronger than wood. Another exciting cure on demand material is quick cure clay, which allows you to make a sculpture or craft project that is stronger than traditional ceramics, allows you all the time you need to create your project, and will harden to great strength when you heat part of the object. The curing process, again, propagates rapidly by frontal polymerization.
Becky Carmichael
[2:24] Thank you for joining us today, Professor Pojman. I'm so happy that you've come and you're going to tell us a little bit about your research and the many interesting things that you're involved with.
John Pojman
[2:33] Well Becky, it's great to be here today.
Becky Carmichael
[2:35] So you just shared with us a little bit about your quick curing clay or material. How did this particular area of research transpire? How did you get into it?
John Pojman
[2:47] I started in 1990 when I was at the University of Southern Mississippi, and I was interested in looking at propagating chemical reactions. And I got the idea of maybe you could do this with polymerization reactions. And I started doing it and published it. I found out, in fact, this process had been first discovered in Chernogolovka, Russia in the early 70's. But at that time was very hard to read a lot of the Russian literature and I just simply was unaware of it. So I continued working on it. And for years, I was just studying how these reactions could spread out and how gravity could affect them. I worked for years with NASA. We did experiments. And it was when I moved to Baton Rouge, to come LSU, that I was doing a repair. And I noticed that when the wood filler dried, it left little holes and little divots. I said there's got to be a better way to do this. Maybe I could use what I'm doing in the lab as a way to do a rapid repair of wood. And so I started working on a wood filler and playing around with it. And through several different occurrences I ended up getting the idea of doing something with art, which was very far removed for me because I never had been involved with art. And so when I gave a talk I said I think your material might be good for art. And I started playing around with it, contacted people in the art school, ended up meeting an artist named Shelby (inaudible) who was doing her masters of fine art. And she said I think this can be good for sculpture material. So she was my sort of alpha tester, as I developed a process that can be for sculpture. She ended up using and helping me develop quick cure clay, which she used for her MFA and she does really fine work with it.
Becky Carmichael
[4:13] So I want to take a step back. For those that may not be familiar, can you tell me what is a polymer?
John Pojman
[4:21] A polymer is... Think of Mardi Gras beads, where you have the little beads and you attach them all together in a long string. The little beads are the monomers and a polymer is many mers. So a polymer is just a very long molecule of repeating units. And they can be like spaghetti, or they can be connected together in a very hard material. Think of like the epoxies, or fishing rods. Those are all made from a polymer but it's a very rigid material or it can be a soft, flexible material.
Becky Carmichael
[4:48] And so with your your particular polymer that you were examining, you said that this was something that was a quick cure and different from that epoxy. Does it respond differently to different types of heat.
John Pojman
[5:03] Well epoxies are what are called... They're two part formulations. So you have to take... They'll have the the resin and then the hardener and you have to mix them together in the right ratio. Stir them up well, and once you do it, the clock is ticking. So you may have five minutes, you may have 24 hours, but you have to do it. And once it sets, you can't do anything with it. So you have the disadvantage of mixing, and you have a program time that you don't control as opposed to cure on demand, or if you have quick cure, means you can take the material out of the jar. It won't react, you have all the time you need to prepare your sculpture, prepare your repair, and only then do you stimulate it by heating the surface that you can get this rapid cure.
Becky Carmichael
[5:42] So I would imagine you're also conserving material, so you're not having to use as much material.
John Pojman
[5:48] Exactly. Because once you mix it up and you don't use it, it's going to harden in the mixer and you waste it.
Becky Carmichael
[5:54] That's interesting. So you mentioned something about collaborations with NASA. How has NASA and other governmental agencies or any of the other collaborations utilized your particular compound?
John Pojman
[6:09] They never were actually using it in their own use. NASA was allowing this opportunity to do experiments on the KC 135. I would (inaudible) 800 parabolas where we'd study the process in the absence of what we call buoyancy driven convection, fluid motion caused by gravity.
Becky Carmichael
[6:24] Tell me what is this? Explain what that was? What's this apparatus?
John Pojman
[6:28] Oh the KC 135?
Becky Carmichael
[6:29] Yeah, tell me about it.
John Pojman
[6:29] Oh, yeah, sure. That's what they call vomit comet just flies in a giant roller coaster pattern, and you go from approximately zero G for 20 seconds, then you go up to 1.8 G and back and forth 40 times a day.
Becky Carmichael
[6:43] That sounds like a great time.
John Pojman
[6:45] It was fun. I don't think I could do it today without getting up. As they say there's no shame in getting sick, but there's no great honor either.
Becky Carmichael
[6:51] So you were actually in the...
John Pojman
[6:53] Yes! Yeah, I'd fly. That was a long time ago. I did that about 20 years ago. I was a much younger version of myself. But that was lot of fun that we can do the experiments and then analyze the video and see how gravity affected... or fly it at Martian gravity. And so we were doing a lot of experiments like that. We had an experiment planned for the space station, but that ultimately was cancelled when they had a big budget cut. So...
Becky Carmichael
[7:13] Yeah.
John Pojman
[7:13] Then we did some work then... Unrelated stuff with Jeff Bezos on his new Shepherd flight last year.
Becky Carmichael
[7:20] Oh, that's exciting!
John Pojman
[7:21] Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
Kyle Sirovy
[7:23] So how long have these questions been around that have been untestable because we haven't been able to access zero gravity? And do you see this being a growing field or is with budget cuts, something that you don't see this, maybe in the next five years, being a pressing research area?
John Pojman
[7:40] There's a question that goes back from about 1904. Which was the question, "if you take two miscible fluids, fluids that can dissolve each other, and put them in contact with each other, will they act like immiscible fluids? And the problem if you try to do the experiment in the normal laboratory condition is there's a difference in density and they get mixed up. So we like to say there's no way on earth to answer the question. And so that was a question we did. And that was the experiment that was slated. It came out of frontal polymerization, but it was a new kind of experiment for the space station, where we needed many, many minutes to hours of weightlessness. And that's a question that there really isn't an easy way to answer it in this condition here. Frankly, it's not a high priority because there's not a great commercial application. It's a fundamental science question. And I think that sort of research... I don't see it for the next decade or so, maybe 20 years. There was a lot of emphasis in NASA in the 80s and 90s on fundamental questions to be answered in weightlessness and that has disappeared. When they have so much money to put in the space station, there's very little science done on the space station. It costs so much to do it. Now, it's sort of a treehouse that, you know, you can share with your neighbor and go up and sit in. But there's a lot of good science done. But I think the emphasis now is away from fundamental material science to how are we going to get people to live a long time on a space voyage, you know. Those questions are going to really dominate. I just think realistically the private sector may come in, but you know, Jeff Bezos is not in the business of giving away. He gave away a few flights, but he's not in the business of answering fundamental science. He's in the business of making money, and there's no way you're gonna make money doing these things.
Becky Carmichael
[9:17] You've had many unique collaborations.
John Pojman
[9:20] Mhmm.
Becky Carmichael
[9:21] Which ones were the most unexpected?
John Pojman
[9:24] The art. I mean, working with NASA was very deliberate. I knew that there were these reactions that are very sensitive to gravity. So therefore, it made sense to study them in weightlessness. But the art was completely unexpected. I was giving a talk in Portland, Oregon, and somebody said, I think this stuff will be good for art. I was like, I really don't know what you're talking about. So she met with me afterwards and said, you know, you could do this. And I started, you know... I made up some formulations. We were trying to do like a rapid fresco material or something and gave it to her. And she was making kind of abstract things with it. And I said, Yeah, maybe I can try to do something with this commercially, and ended up contacting the art school. They let me come over and do a demonstration to their students. And one student was very interested, Shelby (inaudible), and she came over with me and gave me the idea of making a sculpture material. Again, having never done sculpture, I had no idea what the issues were.
Becky Carmichael
[10:12] So what were some of the issues that she highlighted and how did you address those?
John Pojman
[10:16] For example, the fact that you would have to use a kiln, which is a large apparatus. For example, she was in Portugal, Spain, this summer and she took 10 pounds of the product. All she had to do was bring a little heat gun. She could do all the sculpture there. She didn't need a kiln. The the issue of drying out that you got to play, it sits there and it'll dry out. This has unlimited working time. The ability to build it up piece by piece, integrate materials like wood... I mean, you couldn't do that if you put it into a kiln. It would burn it. So she could do multimedia. A great strength, it's much stronger than this. You can make materials out of it, drop it, and they just bounce. It's much stronger than ceramic. So those were the things that I wasn't, having never done ceramics, I had no idea what was wrong with or was unusual about ceramics and she helped me craft sort of a unique position in the market.
Becky Carmichael
[11:04] So we know you've been able to showcase some of this work in the Louisiana Art and Science Museum here in Baton Rouge.
John Pojman
[11:13] Yes.
Becky Carmichael
[11:13] Have you've been able to... Has your work and work with the quick cure clay been showcased to the other museums?
John Pojman
[11:19] In Kansas, where she's a professor at the University of St. Mary, her students use it and so I've gone up there on my sabbatical to spend time working with her students. So they have showcased it in their local museum. And what I'm doing now is I'm just finalizing a licensing agreement. So hopefully this will be then taken over by a large arts and crafts company. And so right now, I've been mixing it myself with bread mixers at the Louisiana Business Technology Center. And this would then be something, hopefully within the next year, will be in Michael's and Hobby Lobby and places like that.
Becky Carmichael
[11:48] Oh, wow. Did you ever expect for your career to take you on this trajectory?
John Pojman
[11:53] No, not at all. No, I was not interested in anything sort of business related. And frankly, when I was in Mississippi, there wasn't a support. Here, at LSU, there's excellent support in helping start a business. And I certainly wouldn't have started this business if I knew how hard it was. I mean, right now, I've been running a nonprofit venture for many years. Because I've made a small fortune by taking a large fortune, and it's all self funded. But it's been an excellent experience, because it's making me a better professor. I'm learning a lot about business, and most of my students go on to work in industry. And so one thing is having a good idea. That's not the same thing as making a profitable idea. There's other challenges to being a successful scientist in business. And so I really enjoy this new challenge in my life.
Becky Carmichael
[12:38] It sounds like it's exciting. Since we can't see, you have had several pieces, and we will share your website.
John Pojman
[12:47] Mhmm.
Becky Carmichael
[12:48] Anyone who's listening can go and they can check out the different artwork that has been created with the clay. Do you have any videos that show the frontal polymerization process going?
John Pojman
[12:59] Yes, there's even a demonstration video, but I can also give you some links. Because there's a wonderful (inaudible) to watch it. When the reaction propagates, it doesn't actually go smoothly. It'll often go in a giant helix or pulsate, and you can do some... You simply can't explain it easily, why it does that. It doesn't go smoothly. It's kind of like a flame bouncing around. And every day I just go, usually my garage or in the lab, and I just run one because I'm just fascinated by watching reactions propagate.
Becky Carmichael
[13:29] What energizes you every day to get up and continue to do your science?
John Pojman
[13:35] Working with students.
Becky Carmichael
[13:36] Yeah.
John Pojman
[13:37] I absolutely just really... It's probably because a lot of people have to listen to me all day. That could be it. There's only two careers where people have to listen to you. Prison guard and professor. So I really enjoy teaching people. So it's just a great thrill to work with the students here. That's what I really enjoy.
Becky Carmichael
[13:39] I like that answer. I find that the students really teach me a lot of things.
John Pojman
[14:00] Yes.
Becky Carmichael
[14:00] I think it blurs that line of teacher and student.
John Pojman
[14:03] It's always new for them. You know, one time I even said I said, "Didn't I explain all this last year?" They said, "Yeah, but we weren't here." Right? And so it's the newness of explaining. And again, they have new insights and that's what I most enjoy. I would miss that most not being in a university.
Becky Carmichael
[14:18] How did the patents come to be? What was your original vision when you were studying the clay and then the...
John Pojman
[14:25] Well I should say I have some patents unrelated to frontal polymerization, but these materials are not patented? Patents, I think are overemphasized because the patent just gives you the right to sue somebody from stealing from you. It doesn't protect you from stealing it. And if you're a small company... I've been using the model sort of like gorilla glue. None of gorilla glue's products are patented. They've simply taken a... I mean, I know basically how they work, but it wouldn't be easy to reverse engineer them. What they've done is create a brand now. They have gorilla tape. Gorilla Glue is a really nice approach to a problem. The chemistry is 50 years old. They haven't really done something new, they've done it in a nice way. And they have that brand. So my model is sort of to create the quick cure brand. And my company is Pojman Polymer Products. So it's three p like three M. And so I'm the three P CEO. But that's the idea of having a patent is not necessary to do commerce. What I do is, since it's actually owned by LSU, because I'm an LSU employee, and so my company has licensed it from LSU. And so then I can work independently, and then profits from that would be shared with the university.
Becky Carmichael
[15:35] So then, that's nice. So you have a lot of that support from the university...
John Pojman
[15:39] Absolutely.
Becky Carmichael
[15:40] Where you can really intermix both your work as a professor and as a researcher with...
John Pojman
[15:46] Right. The actual Commerce has to be done separate. I mean, I rent a lab separately and manufacturer. But there's no question that being a professor helps me when I'm dealing with companies that they know that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to polymers.
Becky Carmichael
[15:59] I want to move into some of the other interesting ideas that you work with. So when and how you got to do studies with the amphiumas.
John Pojman
Mhmm
Becky Carmichael
So for anyone who doesn't know what an amphiuma is, could you explain that?
John Pojman
[16:15] It's the second largest salamander in the world. They get up to... When you think of a salamander, you think of some cute little, tiny thing. These get up to three feet long. I have one in my office that weighs over four pounds, they can probably get up to seven or eight pounds. They have little tiny feet with the cutest size you'd ever see. Little tiny toes, and they're very gentle creatures. Nocturnal, and they're all over the place in Louisiana. And there's very little known about their life cycle, but they live right on campus in the ditches. Anywhere there's a ditch, there's almost certainly an amphiuma. Along Nicholson drive, if you go out at night with a flashlight, you can see them going through the weeds. But very little is known about how they spend their life and why they're so successful. I got interested when I was a kid. I was an amateur herpetologist in Ohio, and I saw them advertised in the Carolina biological supply catalog. I just kind of poured through it. There was no internet, so I would just kind of read science catalogs. And I saw these advertised as Congo eels. That's what they called them. And I really thought I'd love to have one as a pet. So when I was in Baton Rouge the first time, my son and I were out catching critters at night, and we saw one and we caught it. And I knew what it was, so I started doing research. I said, "I'm going to learn more about this". It turns out the world expert on this is Cliff Fontenot at Southeastern. And he's been studying it a long time. And he's the actual herpetologist. So he and I've been working together for the last eight years. And I sort of do all the field work, but he's a real biologist. So that just got me interested. The bottom line is I just love going out in swampy places in Louisiana and catching things.
Becky Carmichael
[17:42] And so what are some of the things... What are some of the works that you and Cliff Fontenot have been doing with regards to the amphiumas? What are some of the things that you're discovering to build on the knowledge about this organism?
John Pojman
[17:56] We have a... There's a little spot in Baton Rouge where we've been studying a population now for six years. It's the longest continuous population study of amphiuma, and we capture them, put individual PIT tags, like people put in their dog so you can scan them, and put radio transmitters in them. And we've found, so far, enormous population density. And if we're right, it's the highest vertebrate biomass density ever reported. More than lions, tigers or bears, I mean, it is a huge amount of these living in a very small location. And so it's extremely interesting that they can survive and do so well, when most of the amphibians in the world are... Their populations are declining from this fungus that coming. Amphiumas are thriving, and they're thriving in... They live in oxygen depleted water. They're air breathing. So they've adapted so that they live in urban environments. And so we've observed this enormously high population density and been able to observe they are territorial. When we had the big flood a year ago, they all stayed in place. I was able to canoe above them and see that they were still in the same space they were. So they seem to be quite territorial. And so we're just learning a lot about the population dynamics.
Becky Carmichael
[19:05] Wow. At one point, you had told me there was something interesting about the slime?
John Pojman
[19:09] Yes, we're working with Professor Kermit Murray in chemistry and Dr. Fabrizio Donnarumma. I'm trying to understand why they seem so resistant to infection. We capture them, and they have all kinds of bites all over them, and they just don't ever seem to get an infection. If you or I cut ourself and put our hands in that water, we probably would get a bad infection. So is there something intrinsic in the slime that is antibacterial? Are there proteins that do it? They also can secrete a certain white secretion when they get extremely agitated, mostly from their tail. So presumably, that's a way to scare off predators, or maybe it is a toxin that's bad tasting. We don't know. And so as I say, my job is mostly to catch them. I just like catching them.
Becky Carmichael
[20:00] Then this takes us to... I like this question. What's the craziest, weirdest, or the most dangerous thing you've done in the name of science?
John Pojman
[20:10] Craziest? I don't think I've ever done anything dangerous. The craziest? Probably going out in these areas when it's incredibly hot and humid with mosquitoes, and, you know, for hours going on trying to catch them. I mean, that's, that's probably... Most people (inaudible), and they definitely have a questioned my sanity. They say, "What am I doing in that? Why am I waiting around in this area. I've met a lot of people in our neighborhood because they come by and say, "what are you doing?" I always use it as a teaching moment and say, "Do you like reptiles and amphibians?" That's what my son says. That's a great opening line with people, right? And they said, Well, I don't know, and teach them about them because people aren't familiar with them. They think they might be dangerous. And I want to educate people and say these are something unique we have in Louisiana, and we should be proud of them. And they're part of the ecosystem, and they're harmless creatures to be left alone. I'm not from Louisiana, and my one of my favorite parts of Louisiana is that it's the land of milk and honey for reptiles and amphibians. And compared to Ohio, there's very little to look for. And most people here, they've spent their whole life here and don't realize there's these creatures that are living right nearby them and very little is known about them. And you think of kind of unusual animals to be in New Guinea or some exotic place, not in Baton Rouge. I mean, no one has even observed these mate.
Becky Carmichael
[21:27] Really?
John Pojman
[21:27] No, there's been no observation of them mating. I mean, they obviously do but there's no confirmation on if they have courtship behavior or how they interact. And it's kind of astounding to me that in this day and age, an animal that lives throughout our city is so poorly studied.
Becky Carmichael
[21:41] That is really outstanding!
John Pojman
[21:42] Yeah.
Becky Carmichael
[21:42] And the other part of this that I'm intrigued by is the potential resistance to the fungus wreaking so much havoc on many of the amphibian populations throughout the world. Questions that lie on that about what might occur with changing the temperatures, rising temperatures, or differences in conditions of flooding. If that increases or it changes the places that do flood, what is that? What might that do to these populations? I think that's all really interesting.
John Pojman
[22:16] And we won't know how it changes if we don't know how it was before. And what on the baseline? I would say when my son and I helped several years ago with a group from Tulane, and they found that the amphiuma would carry the fungus, but they seem to be resistant to it.
Becky Carmichael
[22:29] They carry it?
John Pojman
[22:30] We had done testing with swabbing them. We went around and captured them and swabbed them. What's really interesting is that they seem to be a carrier, but not infected by it. So that would be really interesting question. They're kind of the raccoons of the amphibian world in terms of something that seems opportunistic and very resistant and able to adapt to an urban environment.
Becky Carmichael
[22:47] That's really interesting.
John Pojman
[22:49] You didn't ask me if they're good to eat. That's usual question in Louisiana.
Becky Carmichael
[22:56] That is a good question because I did still want to ask you about the list of mammals that have been eaten. Have you eaten an amphiuma?
John Pojman
[23:03] I did once. It was not part of the research specimen. I mean, it was not part of a research study.
Becky Carmichael
[23:07] Yeah.
John Pojman
[23:08] But yes, it tasted very much like fishy frog legs.
Becky Carmichael
[23:13] Fishy frog legs? How did you prepare this?
John Pojman
[23:16] In a nice, light butter sauce with garlic
Becky Carmichael
[23:20] Butter and garlic make a lot of things taste amazing.
John Pojman
[23:22] The strange thing was it's kind of like cleaning a catfish. You whack it on the head. They call it cranial concussion followed by decapitation. So you whack it on the head and cut its head off. And you would think it's dead. Well, it may be dead, but it's still moving. So then you skin it. It's very hard to get the skin off like a catfish. Still wiggling. You gut it and cut it up in little pieces. The little fins are still wiggling in the frying pan. That is fresh. That's fresh. And so I started with my son and his friends, and you know, they liked it. My fear is Cajuns will discover it and there'll be something on the menus around here will be a blackened amphiuma, and the population will crash.
Becky Carmichael
[23:26] Oh no.
John Pojman
[23:45] That's right. That'll be the end of it.
Becky Carmichael
[24:01] So you need to find out more about this specimen before we decide it's a delicacy.
John Pojman
[24:06] Exactly.
Becky Carmichael
[24:07] It's tasty to eat. What makes a pocket protector so special that it is the fashion accessory for the new millennium?
John Pojman
[24:15] That's right and I'm not just a collector. I'm also aware. You know? For me, it's sort of in an anti-science climate. It's a public statement that I love science. I'm a nerd and I'm proud of it. And this is sort of the pocket protector. It is also a uniquely American phenomenon. I was in Austria at a conference and I was giving out prizes if someone would ask me a question. Trying to get the students interactive and the prize was a pocket protector. And the older professors knew what it was. Probably from watching American movies, but it was something that was never present in Europe. So it really is an American phenomenon, and it's certainly the stigma of kind of white male engineers. But now it's sort of retro-chic. And the fact that students don't have any conception that this is somehow a sexist legacy of the 60s, it's just sort of a weird thing. And I'd like to just... You know that I'm a nerd, and I'm proud of it.
Becky Carmichael
[25:09] How many pocket protectors do you own?
John Pojman
[25:11] I have 1950 unique pocket protectors and more than a total.
Becky Carmichael
[25:16] Oh my gosh. When did you start collecting?
John Pojman
[25:19] About 15 years ago?
Becky Carmichael
[25:21] What drew you? Do you remember?
John Pojman
[25:24] I do. I got one at the American (inaudible) Meeting. And I had never seen new ones. I knew the old ones existed, and I thought, wow, that's really neat. And I was wearing one, and it really annoyed a female colleague, because she thought this is kind of so typical of... You know, this is a male thing to wear the stupid pocket protector. So to annoy her, I started getting as many as possible. She's a good friend of mine. It was just sort of a way to kind of really annoy her to get more of them. And they still make them and we have them for the chemistry department here. We had him in Mississippi. I've actually had them on rocket experiments with Jeff Bezos. Paid Russian astronauts to carry them up to space. There's still a common phenomenon, but it is really American phenomenon. I have a couple. One in Japanese and three advertising cerveza from Chile, but it really never caught on the rest of the world.
Becky Carmichael
[26:16] Advertising cerveza?
John Pojman
[26:17] Yeah, I bought them on eBay from someone in Chile.
Becky Carmichael
[26:21] That takes it into a new, you know, (inaudible).
John Pojman
[26:25] Yeah. Exactly.
Becky Carmichael
[26:26] And then you want to question how big is that pocket? Are they holding...
John Pojman
[26:31] No, it was just kind of the... I was explaining to somebody in Austria. He he, I don't know if I'm going to get him in trouble. I said, you know, you really go to your marketing department to do this, because he had never heard of it. And I said, well this was very popular, every business would, have the pads of paper, the pens and the pocket protector. It was just one of those things you'd give away. And so the heyday was really probably the 60s and 70s, but they're still made. You can still get them custom ordered. And so I just like, you know, letting people know that science is important. Technology, you should be proud of it.
Becky Carmichael
[27:01] Do you hold it? Do you hold like a world record for your collection?
John Pojman
[27:05] I claim it, but no one has challenged me. So it's perhaps a dubious distinction to be the alpha nerd. I tried the Guinness Book of World Records. They weren't interested. So I kind of have a grudge against them.
Becky Carmichael
[27:18] What? I would have a grudge against.
John Pojman
[27:19] Yeah, I mean, there's one guy but... When I had 500 my wife said okay, that's enough. You're going to stop? I said, look Dear. That's not the attitude that got us to the moon. You know, we got to keep going here. But there's someone who has over 10,000 snow globes, so I can't stop. I mean, that's a lot of snow globes so 2000 pocket protectors pales.
Becky Carmichael
[27:36] 10000 snow globes makes me really anxious.
Can you imagine what space could you touch? If you knocked into one would you drop
and knock another one?
John Pojman
[27:45] The nice thing is this doesn't take up much space.
Becky Carmichael
[27:47] Yeah those are kind of... They're slim.
John Pojman
[27:48] Yeah.
Becky Carmichael
[27:49] I could see, you know, a chest.
John Pojman
[27:50] Exactly. That's right. And you go to pocketprotectors.info, and you can see all of them. It's the world's only webseum of pocket protectors.
Becky Carmichael
[28:00] Ooooh. We'll definitely have to link that.
The limit. Whatever the limit is. You're allowing yourself... Your imagination to
really run wild with what you could potentially do with your products. What do you
see? What's on the horizon?
John Pojman
[28:16] Well my dream would be that you'd wake up and you go to a store like Michaels and you'd see a whole aisle of quick cure products. This would just be... The beginning would be quick cure clay and quick cure casting material. Quick cure I don't know what yet. This becomes a whole approach that people use. Just like you have scotch brand that you have lots and lots of different materials that come out of this. And the other in terms of the repair, one of my dreams really is to be able to make a cure on demand wood glue or to replace. And it's extremely difficult because you have such tiny layers between to get it to react. And so that's something we had worked on, but to get it to work you would have to be able to things really fast. I'm just kind of passionate about adhesives.
Becky Carmichael
[29:01] So for the wood, the temperature I would imagine is also part of the complications.
John Pojman
[29:08]
Yes.
Becky Carmichael
[29:08] You're making something that's flammable, and would you have to make a different clay or a different kind of polymer for different types of wood?
John Pojman
[29:23] Well, fortunately, none of these chemical reactions get high enough to ignite wood or paper. So that's one of the beauties of doing the sculpting. You can put in wood and paper. The problem is when you get to the very, very thin layers, like between wood. And different types of wood conduct heat better, like hardwoods versus softwoods. It just doesn't react, so you don't get the cure on demand feature. And so that's going to require a whole new advance in understanding. And that's probably what comes out of the research lab, and then I would like to commercialize it. That would be the real dream, so you can take any material and be able to cure it. I would love to be able to get into biomedical applications. Very respectfully, we're working the lab and trying to make a cure on demand bone repair, and working with surgeons and saying, you know... Something right now, they mix things. It's a lot like bondo, I mean, the chemistry is pretty much the same as bondo, and they mix it up. It's 50 year old chemistry. Something where the surgeon would have lots of time, and they could very rapidly do a repair.
Becky Carmichael
[30:16] That, to me, would be really exciting. Because, first, when you said casting, I immediately thought about even just outwardly cast kind of that application and wondering internally what all it could potentially be used for.
John Pojman
[30:30] There, the temperature is really a problem, because you can only get so high temperature without damaging tissue. So we're working on it right now. We're trying to get the temperature lower. Of course, there's so many other complications with biomedical that it's going to be worked for decades, if it's bone repair. That is highly speculative, but I think it's reasonable to think we could get a lot of new materials and get this approach into lots of different hobbies, arts and crafts, and wood repair.
Becky Carmichael
[30:57] I've also been thinking about automobile repair.
John Pojman
[30:59] Mhmm.
Becky Carmichael
[31:00] So if somebody has a dent, or you know, you're doing any kind of restoration of an older automobile... You see all this fiberglass kind of material in my dad's garage and it's clunky and it's smoothing it out. I'm wondering if a typical clay could be applied in a smoother layer and then have a harder bond.
John Pojman
[31:27] I've tried it and I sort of deliberately bumped my car into things to get dense in it so I could do repairs on it. So I have, you know, the back there and I've done repairs. It's really hard to beat Bondo. It's a mature product. It's inexpensive. The one problem is, you know, when you got a new product that you're going to be a lot higher cost. So the question is, is the fact that it's fast important enough versus finish. One of the problems I had was getting it to adhere well. And the other is to get that really smooth finish because that's what it's all about in auto repair. They don't want something that's almost good enough. It's got to be there. So things like repairing the wood, where it may not be as sensitive, or the art market where you've got now something in this unique position. Originally one of the first things I looked at was trying to do automobile repair, because it's a massive market. But it's also a very mature market. But that's an excellent example, in any case, where you would want to do something fast. So that was going to need some new chemistry. And that's what I'm doing in LSU.
Becky Carmichael
[32:23] Excellent. Do you have several students that work with you in your lab?
John Pojman
[32:27] Oh, absolutely. There's some students right now. Several doing where we're working... Balan Thompson and Samuel (inaudible). They're working in (inaudible). We're looking at new chemistries that aren't what's already out there. To do something commercially, I need materials that already exist that I can buy in large quantities, but we're trying to develop some new chemistries that would give us unique opportunities. So that's what they do for their doctoral research.
Becky Carmichael
[32:49] One of the things that I'm getting from all of it, all of your work, all of these interests, is the theme of basic research and a drive for curiosity. And acting on that curiosity, allowing that to flourish. If you had any advice for students that are up-and-coming, and they're just starting either at LSU, or they're thinking about coming into LSU or even enter any university, what advice would you give someone when they're starting out?
John Pojman
[33:18] Don't over-specialize. I see the mistake of students who say, you know, I want to be a chemist, so I just want to take chemistry courses. I was originally a biology major. I love biology, obviously. But it was just not not hard enough. I'm not a physics major, because it was too hard. So I just wasn't that great at math. But I'm glad I took biology. I don't think you can be an educated person in science, especially if you haven't studied biology, physics, or mathematics. You need that broad base, because you don't know where you're going to go. And so to be open to it and to have that, you do need to specialize and learn something really well, but the questions... The hardest thing for students is to come up with new questions to study, and a lot of that comes by knowing about other fields. That for me is what makes it interesting. Not to be a technician of science, but an explorer of science.
Becky Carmichael
[34:05] And the other question that I like to ask participants is, if you can identify one, what's the best lesson that you've learned? Or what is that one, quote unquote, mistake that really was pivotal for you?
John Pojman
[34:21] I missed calculus two days in a row in my freshman year in college and took me about 20 years to catch up. The mistake I made in education was not being serious enough about especially math classes, because I missed the discussion of logarithms. And it just haunted me. I had to go back and really study it, I should have been more serious about getting those really strong fundamentals. And mathematics is a hard one to go back and learn. And so that was my biggest mistake intellectually was, at the time, I was not so sure I only want to do science. I was interested in many, many things, which, you know, helped to form the rest of my career. But to really make sure you get those basic materials and to go to every class. To go meet with the professor. To make use of the opportunities you have, while you're young and have this opportunity presented to you, make use of it.
Becky Carmichael
[35:06] I like that advice. There's so many different... You have several different points of access, but also different reservoirs of information. And they're not always in a building. But it also can be the person. It can be a book. It can be just so many different spaces to inquire and get that information to help you succeed.
John Pojman
[35:31] We've probably just come at what why I like working with artists. It's not that I like art. I mean, to be honest, you know, some of it I like, but I like artists, because I like people who are passionate about what they do. And nobody goes into art, because it's an easy way to make a living. You know, you can go into chemistry, and get a job and good living. But I don't like people who aren't passionate about it. But if you go into art, you are passionate about what you do. You do it because you love it and you're passionate about your materials. It's a lot in common with science in terms of how they educate. It's a very labor intensive educational mode. And so I really like working with artists, because they're so excited about it. And no matter what the field is, that's what excites me is to see people who are excited about it. I guess one other piece of advice is, whatever you do, be passionate about it. Otherwise, you're just kind of passing through life.
Becky Carmichael
[36:18] That's excellent. Yeah, why do you want to do something for the rest of your life that doesn't get you excited and get you up and get you thinking about what am I going to discover today? Who am I going to talk to? And what might we find?
John Pojman
[36:31] When I went to graduate school I made a pact with myself. If I didn't enjoy myself... If I didn't get up two weeks in a row excited, I would do something different. And that was 30 years ago, it hasn't happened two days in a row. So I know I made the right choice. Excellent.
Becky Carmichael
[36:46] Is there any parting thoughts that you would like to make sure that we capture while you're here today?
John Pojman
[36:52] Marry well, then you can do whatever you like in life. That was something my grandmother said. My grandmother goes, "I want somebody marry you well." I never understood what that meant, but my wife is a corporate attorney. So I I live like an attorney and work like a professor. So that's... I'm very fortunate.
Becky Carmichael
[37:10] There is a lot of fortune that can be had if you find the right person.
John Pojman
[37:14] Who shares your, if not your exact interests, but the fact that she'll kind of even be amused that, you know, it's another busy day at the office, because I'll be all day just piddling around or something. But she appreciates the fact that I'm passionate about what I want to do and been willing to, you know, adjust her career aspirations where we live, because it's there's fewer jobs in academics than in law. But the fact that we share a fundamental interest in learning is probably the most important and having that in common has been why we're together all these years.
Becky Carmichael
[37:41] That's wonderful. So Professor Pojman, I'd like to thank you so very much for joining us.
John Pojman
[37:46] It was my pleasure.
Becky Carmichael
[37:47] I look forward to hearing about new discoveries for both the polymorization front as well as for amphiumas. And so thank you so much.
John Pojman
[37:56] Thank you.
Kyle Sirovy
[37:57] This episode of Experimental was recorded and the School of Library and Information Science recording lab here on Louisiana State University campus. Experimental is supported by LSU's communication across the curriculum and the College of Science. Today's interview was conducted and produced by Becky Carmichael. To learn more about today's episode, subscribe to the podcast, ask questions and recommend future investigators visit cxc.lsu.edu/experimental