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46963-SE
Polymer Surface and Interfaces, at the ACS National Meeting, March 2007, Chicago, IL

Rigoberto Advincula, University of Houston

The meeting was held at the 233rd ACS National Meeting in Chicago, March 25-29, 2007. The sponsoring organization/division included the ACS Polymer Division and the PMSE Division (but no committed funding). The timeline of the symposium organization was as follows: 1) planning of the topics, March 2006, 2) invitation of speakers and advertisement, July-November 2006, 3) Request for funding, September-December 2006, 4) Conference, March 2007. We had a 5-day symposium with at least 72 talks (both invited and oral contributions) and 15 posters. While the request for the PRF is officially for 5 international speakers, we were able to support at least 7 foreign speakers. We supported in total 22 national speakers. A large number of these speakers are young assistant professors.

This symposium brought together the most up-to-date and breakthrough research in the fundamental field of polymer surfaces and interfaces. The focus to the properties of polymers at surfaces and interfaces is of fundamental importance because of its contributions in both physical/chemical understanding and materials development, leading to new technologies that ultimately benefit society.

In the symposium, new developments in “polymer brushes” and thin films, adhesion and tribological properties of polymers, block-copolymer templating, and applications in biopolymers/biosurfaces are among the major topics of this symposium that were reported.

The National Meeting of the American Chemical Society was the right venue to hold this symposium because of the scope and international exposure it gives to chemists, physicists, materials scientists, and chemical engineers. The participants and audience benefited from the introduction of new methods of chemical synthesis (polymer brushes) as well as new physical methods for investigation (tribology and surface probe microscopy-SPM).

The topics in this symposium has been divided as follows:

Section 1: Polymer Brushes

Section 2: Responsive Surfaces, Interfaces, and Films

Section 3: Multi-layers, Thin Films and Surface Characterization

Section 4: Biopolymer / Bioactive Surfaces

Section 5: Interfacial Physics and Adhesion

Section 6: Self-Assembly, Adsorption, and Patterning

Section 7: Polymer Nanocomposites, Particles, Hydrogels, and Emulsions

Section 8: Chemistry at Surfaces and Interfaces

Section 9: Polymers at Surfaces and Interfaces General Topics

The organizers include Alfred Cosby, Jeff Youngblood, Rigoberto Advincula, and an international colleague, Ying Chang.

Factors that we believe have contributed to the access and success of this meeting are as follows: 1) a national and international venue for the meeting in which participants can attend other symposia and network, 2) previous successful conferences by the organizers, 3) invited well-known international and US scientists, 4) broad advertisement of the symposium, 5) and funding from a number of sources including NSF and industry. Again, most important factor and reason is that the topic is of high significance, judging from the number of participants, 72 talks and 15 posters.

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