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The Polymers in Membrane Technology Symposium was held at the 238^th National ACS Meeting in Washington, D.C.  The organizers of the symposium were Kirt A. Page (NIST; Polymers Division) and Benny Freeman (The University of Texas at Austin; Department of Chemical Engineering).  Professor Benny Freeman is a world-leader in the area of the study of solubility, diffusivity and permeability in structured polymer membranes.  Kirt Page is a young scientist and has an interest and experience on correlating structure and dynamics in polymer materials as they relate to transport in membrane materials for energy applications.

The symposium started on Sunday morning and ended on Thursday midday.  Over the course of the week, there were 62 talks given.  This number of oral presentations was broken down into approximately 38 contributed talks and 24 invited talks.  There was a small poster session of 10 posters in the joint PMSE/POLY session, but the symposium was mainly focused on garnering discussions via the oral contributions.  There were several international speakers including the two speakers supported by the ACS PRF Grant.  While the majority of presentations were by academic and national laboratories, there were a surprising number of industrial speakers willing to share their results and advances in product developments in the fuel cell arena.

The talks ranged from materials characterization to theory.  The symposium featured talks of the most recent results in the understanding of solubility, permeability, and diffusivity in polymer membranes for a range of applications.  One goal of the symposium was to bring together researchers from different areas of polymer membrane science in order to facilitate dialogue and possible future collaborations.

The topics covered by the symposium included:

• Polymers for filtration
• Polymers for gas separation/purification
• Polyelectrolyte membranes for fuel cell applications:
  • Structure
  • Transport

The talks stimulated many discussions and interactions between scientists studying membranes for gas separations and those investigating polymers for fuel cell applications.

One particular rewarding aspect of the symposium was that three sessions were dedicated to honor Professor Donald Paul (for his birthday).  Dr. Paul is a world renowned scientist in the area of polymer membranes.  These sessions were all invited speakers of the highest caliber in the field of polymer membranes and resulted in many lively discussions regarding the current limitations on membrane performance and theory and the fundamental understanding thereof.

In addition, this symposium was an excellent opportunity for the NIST Polymers Division to disseminate information regarding the relatively new program that we have developed on materials for energy storage and delivery.  Many opportunities for collaboration and interaction were indentified.  Moreover, the symposium was able to reveal new opportunities in advancing measurement science in the area of polymer membranes both with regards to structure and transport.  More specifically, discussions exposed a real need to understand how polyelectrolyte membrane materials for fuel cells structure at interfaces and under confinement and how transport is affected under these circumstances.

Overall, this symposium was extremely well-attended.  Nearly every session was filled to room-capacity (70).  This success has led to the planning of further symposia in the area of polymers for energy storage and delivery.  The organizers gratefully acknowledge the support offered bu the Petroleum Research Fund.  The ACS PRF funding enabled the organizers to host Yuri Yampolskii as a speaker to honor Dr. Paul.  His talk entitled “Intermolecular interactions: A new way to govern transport properties of membrane materials” was well received and generated many discussions.  Funding also supported Professor Do Y. Yoon from Seoul National University to present his group’s work on polymer materials for anhydrous fuel cells.