Reports: SE
49696-SE Polymerizations in Nanostructured and Nanocomposite Systems, at the ACS National Meeting, March 22-26, 2009, Salt Lake City, UT
Polymers play a pivotal role in the development of organic materials because polymers offer a convenient, lightweight, and chemically tunable platform for creating solid-state organic materials and devices. The physical nature of long polymer chains and inter-linked polymer lattices can also impart properties ranging from viscous flow to rubber elastic behavior, and even to high mechanical robustness, which are not usually exhibited by small molecule based organic materials. By integrating nanostructure and nanoparticles with polymers, it is possible to generate new polymer systems with controlled order and enhanced anisotropic properties. Nanostructured and nanocomposite materials can exhibit properties superior to conventional materials, which do not have order or architectural control on this size scale. Consequently, such materials can lead to greatly improved performance in applications ranging from information storage to ballistic protection to the removal of fine contaminants from water.
The development of nanostructured and nanocomposite systems is highly dependent on the processing conditions by which they are formed. Of particular importance is the polymerization itself which, in many cases, dictates the ability to control nanoscale features. This symposium will provide an interactive forum to discuss the role of nanostructured environments, nanoscale features, molecular organization, and nanocomposite structure on the polymerization reaction and the ultimate polymer structure and properties that result from polymerizations performed in nanostructured and nanocomposite systems. Topics will showcase how polymer chemistry, polymer molecular weight, polymerization kinetics, and polymer properties are influenced and ultimately controlled by the interactions of the monomer, nanofillers, and the forming polymer with the surrounding nanostructured environment. Specific presentations will focus on polymerizations in self-assembled and liquid crystalline systems, polymerizations in nanoemulsions, the formation of polymer structures on the nanoscale through lithographic and other techniques, the control of polymer properties and composition by manipulation of the polymerizing environment. Additionally, others aspects of polymerizations in nanoscale media including design, synthesis, kinetics, structural evolution, and application of these systems will be discussed throughout the symposium.
The objective of the present symposium scheduled for the Spring 2009 ACS National Meeting, was to highlight polymerization reactions in the design, understanding, and application of nanostructured and nanocomposite systems. In order to do this, a symposium at the ACS meeting with three oral sessions in addition to an evening poster session highlighted new advances in the area of “Polymerizations in Nanostructured and Nanocomposite Systems”. Three sessions were held based on the following topics::
(1) Nanocomposites
(2) Liquid Crystalline and Structured Systems
(3) New Frontiers in Nanotechnology
The "Polymerizations in Nanostructured and Nanocomposite Systems" symposium was a convenient and high profile venue for the presentation of academic and industrial research in the area of polymerization and its role in nanoscale polymer chemistry. This symposium was important in educating not only ACS members but also the general scientific public on the importance of understanding polymerization dynamics in controlling nanostructure and nanoparticle morphology in new application areas. All invited and contributed talks and posters were published in the Spring 2009 volume of Polymer Preprints. This has allowed the proceedings of the symposium to be made accessible via the Internet to an even larger group of people as a research and educational tool.
This symposium also served as an important platform for allowing young scientists (i.e., graduate students and postdoctoral fellows) to participate in and learn about the exciting opportunities at the intersection of polymer reaction engineering and nanotechnology. All sessions had extensive young scientist participation in both the oral and poster sessions. More than 1/2 of the oral presentations in this symposium, and all of the poster contributions were from young scientists or their graduate students.
The symposium was highlighted by two imminent international speakers, Dick Broer from Eindhoven University of Technology and Takashi Kato from the University of Tokyo who addressed interesting topics of particular relevance to the field. The funds obtained from PRF were used to support their registration and travel expenses. These two speakers along with other invited and contributed presentations provided a comprehensive overview of the current state of the impact of order on the polymerization behavior and the effect of polymerization on the nanostructure and morphology in these materials. Additionally, the accompanying poster session to these oral presentations will highlighted work from a number of different groups from around the world.
