Polymer Chemistry Blog

Henri Cramail received his engineering degree from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie et de Physique de Bordeaux in 1987. He obtained his PhD from the LCPO, University of Bordeaux 1, in 1990 for studies in the field of ring-opening metathesis polymerization under the supervision of Profs Alain Soum and Michel Fontanille. After a post-doctoral stay with Prof. W.J. Feast at the University of Durham, U.K., he became an Assistant Professor of Polymer Chemistry at the University of Bordeaux 1 and, since 1999, he has been appointed Professor of Polymer Chemistry at the same University. In 2004, he was awarded the position of Junior Member of the ‘Institut Universitaire de France’. Since 2007, he is the Director of the Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques (LCPO). His research interests concern (i) the coordination polymerization of olefins with a specific focus on single-site catalyst organic supports, (ii) step-growth polymerizations in dispersed media (organic phase, water, super critical CO₂) to design core-shell particles with specific properties and, more intensively today, (iii) the development of new bio-based polymers from renewable resources (vegetable oils, terpenes) through green pathways (catalysis and processes).

Please follow the link for further information on Henri’s laboratory and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

The real motivation to be a chemist is probably the strong will to discover and to ‘create’ something new that can have an impact in our daily life! But shall I (we) succeed?

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/c2py00588c)

It is well-known that metallocene catalysts used for olefin polymerization have to be fixed onto a support to be used in industry. However, some single site catalysts may be deactivated or loose their stereoselectivity when supported on classical inorganic carriers (MgCl2, silica) and, in addition, traces of these inorganic supports may remain in the polyolefin material thus affecting its properties. Making more versatile organic supports composed of self-assemblies of either functional polymers or block-copolymers can thus be a solution to overcome these two issues. Moreover, the methodology we have developed in this manuscript is very simple and quite efficient to prepare polyolefin beads, under mild conditions.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

This is a relatively new journal that attracted me because of the quality of the work published and also because having a new journal mostly devoted to the Chemistry of polymers is, from my point of view, very important for our scientific community.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will attend the 103rd AOCS meeting in California (Long Beach, CA) on 01-04 may 2012 and the 44th IUPAC world Polymer Congress in Virginia on 24-29 june 2012.

How do you spend your spare time?

I practise sports as much as I can (running, playing ‘pelote basque’) and I also try to manage a family wine business (Bordeaux Wine of course!)…

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

Probably a (true) wine-maker (chemistry again!)

Ben Zhong Tang received his B.S. degree from South China University of Technology and Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University. He conducted postdoctoral research at University of Toronto and worked as a senior scientist in the central laboratory of NEOS Corp. He joined the Department of Chemistry at The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology as an assistant professor in 1994 and was promoted to chair professor in 2008. He was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009. He received a Natural Science Award from the Chinese Government and a Senior Research Fellowship Award from the Croucher Foundation in 2007. He is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of RSC Polymer Chemistry Series, Editor of Polymer Bulletin, and News Contributor to Noteworthy Chemistry, an ACS electronic newsweekly.

Please follow the link for further information on Ben’s laboratory and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

Many people become chemists because they love chemistry. This is not true in my case. I become a chemist because I was assigned to study chemistry. I was sort of an all-round pupil, good in almost every subject I had to learn at school, except for sports. When I took the entry examination for college study, I was chosen by a university and assigned to a major I did not apply for. Many people do things for which they have passion, but my approach is different: I cultivate my interest in the things I must do. This was largely true before I became an independent researcher as a faculty in Hong Kong. My motto is “enjoy doing the things I need to do”. This quality has enabled me to have a joyful career and quality life. I am proud of eventually becoming a chemist. I am happy to “play” with molecules everyday now that may lead to the creation of new knowledge, new materials, new technology…

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/c2py00586g)

My research group has been interested in developing new polymerization reactions using alkyne monomers as building blocks. It has been a natural extension for us to study “click” polymerization. When Dr. Anjun Qin was working in my lab in Hong Kong as a postdoctoral associate, he successfully utilized click reaction to synthesize poly(triazole)s. The click polymerization, however, has to use metallic catalysts, which causes such problems as poor solubility of the polymers due to the complexation of the catalytic species with the triazole moieties in the reaction products and the difficulty in completely removing the catalyst residues that are adversely affect the physical, especially optical, properties of the polymers. Dr. Qin is now a faculty at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, helping me run my research lab at the university. We worked with our students in Hangzhou and Hong Kong with a motivation to develop metal-free click polymerization. The work is exciting because we can now prepare functional poly(triazole)s with high regioregularity (F_1,4 up to ~95%) in high yields (up to 100%) by simple heating in the absence of a metallic catalyst.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

I am serving as a science news contributor to Noteworthy Chemistry, an ACS electronic newsweekly. I constantly read research papers published in many journals. Although Polymer Chemistry is a new journal, the papers it has published have attracted my attention because of their high quality. I have thus decided to send our work to Polymer Chemistry for publication. The review and publication have been fast. It has been a pleasant experience to communicate with the Editors.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will attend the 44th IUPAC World Polymer Congress in Virginia on 24–29 June 2012 and the 244th ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia on 19–23 August 2012.

How do you spend your spare time?

Do aerobics, play tennis, sing songs, or listen to music.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I liked literature and arts when I was young. I might choose poet, novelist, painter or singer as my profession if I had choice.

Sabine Beuermann studied chemistry and received a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in the group of Michael Buback at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen. After working as a visiting scientist at the DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington/DE, she returned to Göttingen to work on her habilitation, which was finalized with the habilitation thesis on homogeneous phase polymerizations in supercritical carbon dioxide and the venia legendi for Technical and Macromolecular Chemistry. Since 2006 she is professor of Polymer Chemistry at the University of Potsdam. Current research interest include synthesis, characterization, and modification of vinylidene fluoride polymers, polymerizations in supercritical carbon dioxide or ionic liquids, reversible deactivated radical polymerizations, functionalization of nanoparticles or fullerenes with fluorinated polymers, and detailed investigations into the kinetics of radical polymerizations. Since 1996 she is a member of the IUPAC Subcommittee on “Modeling of Kinetics and Processes of Polymerization”.

Please follow the link for further information on Sabine’s laboratory and her recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00427A)

Initially, we started to look into vinylidene fluoride polymerizations, because I was interested in the kinetics and to use supercritical carbon dioxide as an environmentally friendly reaction medium. Since the very first PhD student working on this topic, M. Imran-ul-haq, had a background in organic chemistry he also started with the functionalization to an azide. Because of its ferro-, piezo, and pyroelectric properties there are many advanced applications for PVDF. Of particular interest are systems with separated PVDF domains, e.g. voids in PVDF or layer formation due to self-aggregation. From this point it was pretty obvious to think about the synthesis of block copolymers with PVDF. However, with the exception of iodine transfer polymerizations vinylidene fluoride is not well suited for reversible deactivated radical polymerization and thus, there were almost no reports on PVDF block copolymers. Obviously, using polystyrene as a second block was only the starting block. We are now working on block copolymers with a number of other polymers.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

Although being a young journal Polymer Chemistry is already well-recognized and the fraction of articles I am interested in is comparably large. Moreover, I like the design of the articles, and the “clean” structure of the homepage. After publication of the article I can also add that the whole process was very fast and went very smoothly.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I am most excited on attending the 20th International Symposium on Fluorine Chemistry in Kobe in July, because it will be my first trip to Japan. In addition, I will go to the Freiburger Makromolekulares Kolloquium in February, the Polymer Reaction Engineering conference in May and probably to MACRO2012 in June.

How do you spend your spare times?

In my spare time I try to make as little plans in advance as possible. I enjoy walking in the beautiful parks and surroundings of Potsdam, trips to the North or Baltic Sea and visiting family.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

Maybe a historian, but I am very happy with the choice I made.

Graeme Moad was born in Orange, NSW, Australia. He obtained his BSc (Hons, First Class) and PhD from the University of Adelaide in the field of organic free radical chemistry. After undertaking post-doctoral research at Pennsylvania State University in the field of biological organic chemistry he joined CSIRO in 1979 where he is is currently a chief research scientist.  He is also a project leader within the Cooperative Research Centre for Polymers. Dr Moad is author or co-author of over 150 publications, co-inventor of 34 patent families (12 relate to the RAFT process) and co-author of the book “The Chemistry of Radical Polymerization”. More than 12,500 papers cite his work and his h-index is 52. His research interests lie in the fields of polymer design and synthesis (radical polymerization, reactive extrusion, polymer nanocomposites) and polymerization kinetics and mechanism. Dr Moad is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and he has recently been elected as a titular member of the Polymer Division of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

Please follow the link for further information on Graeme’s laboratory and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

No specific inspiration. I sort of drifted into science and chemistry through a process of natural selection.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/c2py00529h)

The motivation for this particular line of research was provided by my colleague John Tsanaktsidis and post doc Shadi Houshyar who, having heard us talk on the precision of RAFT polymerization, had the perhaps naïve idea that the process might be used to construct polymer chains precisely.  While aware of their endeavour, I only became directly involved after they showed that it didn’t work.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

The decision to send this paper to Polymer Chemistry was a direct consequence of the arrival of an invitation from Professors Christopher Barner-Kowollik, Jean-François Lutz, and Sebastien Perrier to contribute to the Themed Issue on New Methods of Polymer Synthesis planned for 2012. This fortuitously occurred at the time that we were contemplated publication of the work. Of course we were three months behind the deadline with our submission. The emerging reputation of Polymer Chemistry as one of the premier journals in the field was also important in our choice.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will be at the upcoming 33^rd Australian Polymer Symposium, 12-15 February in Hobart, Tasmania.  Later in the year I will also present at IUPAC Macro 2012, June 24-29 in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA and at Warwick 2012, July 9-12 in Warwick, UK.

How do you spend your spare times?

Spare times?  Much is taken up by our two children. Another large portion by that chemistry that does not directly align with current work, writing papers… In what little remains: bushwalking, reading, maintaining a genealogical web site.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I suspect no matter what profession I chose I would still be a scientist. My mother thought I should go into banking. An aptitude test taken in final year of high school indicated I should be an architect (in a chemistry way, maybe I took that suggestion on board).  But having obtained a borderline marks in English, and grades in Maths, Chemistry and Physics sufficient to gain a University Scholarship (in the only year in which a good grade in English was not a prerequisite), my path was set.

I did rebuild a house once (in my spare time, pre-kids), that was enjoyable.

Directeur de Recherches at CNRS, Bruno Ameduri leads the “Fluoropolymers and Energy” team at the “Engineering and Macromolecular Architectures” Team of Institute Charles Gerhardt in Montpellier, France. His main interests focus on the synthesis and the characterization of fluorinated monomers (including cure site monomers and telechelics), telomers and copolymers for various applications such as surfactants, elastomers, coatings, and polymers related to energy (fuel cell membranes, polymer gel electrolytes for Li-ions batteries and PV). Coauthor of one book, 22 reviews or chapters of books, more than 210 peer review publications and coinventor of more than 55 patents, he is also a member of the American and French Chemical Societies and is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Fluorine Chemistry, European Polymer Journal, Polymer Bulletin, and Associated editor of Polymer Journal (Japan). Out of research, Bruno enjoys cycling, skiing, jogging and playing soccer and tennis with his 2 sons,  and is an active member of the “Rire” Association and, dressed as a clown, visits sick children in hospitals of Montpellier and abroad.

Please follow the link for further information on Bruno’s laboratory and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I had good teachers at the secondary school who showed their motivation and interested me and other pupils. Fortunately, we had pratcial works (every friday morning I remember!) and this was quite funny.
I was also fortunate to get execllent Professors at the University and abroad when I had the chance to go to Canada…last centuary!

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00394A?

Regretably, people, mammals, fish and birds have fluorine (especially fluorinated surfactants such as PFOA and PFOS)  in their blood and these “PCBs of the XXIst centuary” are spread all other the Earth. There was a emergency to find out new products that should be able to decompose and so far I cannot guaranty that those sugegsted in this article can be metabolized or decomposed through humun systems.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

First, I was quite angry against several journals who rejeceted right away the draft…even after explaining to the Editor that he (she) had fluorine in his (her) blood. Then, I promised to Dave Haddleton to submit a MS in that nice journal….and you know the story.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

Mostly in Fluorine Chemistry conferences (India-Feb. 2012), in Valencia , Spain, for the Valencia Fluorine days (May 2012); Kyoto for the Intenational Conference in Fluorine Chemistry, (July 2012) and Fluoropolymers (Oct. 2012).

How do you spend your spare times?

Biking and playing football with my sons (but they are now too fast for me-they train me nicely!) or colleagues from the Lab (big competition between permament and non-permanent researchers!!)…and volunteer as cliniclown in children Hospitals (Montpellier, USA, and Japan). This “once a month activity” is an excellent release of stress, source of humbleness, and shows me other realities of our world…

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

Hard to say…something involving both sport and kids could fit well…

Nicolay V. (Nick) Tsarevsky obtained his M.S. in theoretical chemistry and chemical physics from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria (1999) and Ph.D. in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA (2005), where he worked in Prof. Kris Matyjaszewski’s labs. His work was related to the synthesis of functional polymers by atom transfer radical polymerization and the development of rules for rational selection of the catalyst for various reaction media, including aqueous solvents. He has authored and coauthored more than 65 peer-reviewed journal papers or book chapters, a textbook for high school students, and several patents. He was awarded several national awards, including the Kenneth G. Hancock Memorial Award in Green Chemistry (2003) and the National Starch & Chemical Award (2008). Nick was Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University (2005-6), Associate Director of the CRP Consortium (2006), and a member of the founding team of ATRP Solutions, Inc., of which he served as Chief Science Officer (2007-10). He was secretary (2005) and chair (2006) of the Polymer Group of the Pittsburgh Section of ACS, as well as chair of the Section (2009). He joined the Department of Chemistry at Southern Methodist University in the summer of 2010. Current research interests include polymerization techniques, functional materials, coordination chemistry and catalysis, and the chemistry of hypervalent compounds.

Please follow the link for further information on Nick’s research group and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

The secrets of nature fascinated me since my early childhood. When I was about 10 or so, I started spending my summer vacation at our house in the outskirts of Vitosha mountain near Sofia. In that area, pretty rustic at the time, I started collecting various minerals, insects, and medicinal plants. I thought I would become a biologist and I was reading a lot of books and textbooks on biology. When I was in 5^th grade, my parents and I visited friends who were teachers. I asked if they could find for me the 8^th grade biology textbook, which was the only one missing in my collection, but for some reason I was given the textbooks on both biology and chemistry. I started browsing and reading them and by the time we had to leave for home several days later, I had fallen in love with the newly-discovered science of chemistry to such an extent that I took with me the chemistry textbook but left behind the biology book. I quickly decided to have my own home lab, and very soon, with the help of my parents’ colleagues and friends, I had a pretty decent collection of glassware and chemicals. That is when my love for chemistry started and nothing has been able to extinguish it since then. My high school teacher at the National School of Mathematics and Science, Mrs. Tanya Apostolova, helped me start some research at the University of Sofia when I was in 9^th grade. I entered the University of Sofia to study chemical physics and theoretical chemistry, but during my last year there, one of my professors, Dr. George S. Georgiev, introduced me to polymer science and the exciting world of macromolecular materials. He recruited me to his lab to do research, which was the basis of my M.Sc. thesis. My studies continued in Kris Matyjaszewski’s lab at Carnegie Mellon University, where I learned a great deal and became more convinced than ever that precise measurements, determination of exact numbers, and understanding of reaction mechanisms and kinetics are crucially important to rationally select the optimal reaction conditions needed to make materials. In other words, I have been faithful to chemistry since 5^th grade and never did or never will abandon it.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/c1py00495f)

Controlling molecular characteristics, such as molecular weight, architecture or placement of functional groups is one of the most important goals in synthetic polymer chemistry. However, sometimes the synthesis of specific macromolecules can be rather complicated and time consuming. We were trying to find an easy, and preferably relatively inexpensive, strategy to synthesize branched macromolecules without the need to employ pre-made inimers, which are often synthesized via multi-step procedures. We decided to explore the possibility to exchange “ligands” attached to hypervalent iodine centres with the polymerizable methacryloyloxy groups, yielding inimers in situ. The exchange turned out to be efficient and the homolytic cleavage of the newly formed iodine-oxygen bonds gave rise to branched or transiently crosslinked macromolecules. We were inspired by earlier work on ligand exchange reactions at hypervalent iodine atoms and also by work demonstrating that hypervalent iodine compounds can participate in a number of radical reactions, including initiation of radical polymerization.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

Polymer Chemistry is a very exciting new journal, in which high quality and high impact work is published on mechanistic studies of polymerization or polymer modification, synthesis of materials, characterization, applications, etc. All major aspects of polymer chemistry are thus covered in the journal and it is only natural that polymer chemists would want their work to be published there.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will be attending the Spring ACS National Meeting in San Diego at the end of March 2012, where I will be giving a talk at a symposium honouring Kris Matyjaszewski. I also look forward to attending the Warwick Polymer Conference in July.

How do you spend your spare time?

In addition to chemistry, I love history and art, and I spend a lot of my time reading history books, mostly original sources, visiting museums, listening to opera recordings or going to the theatre or the opera house. I have been known to travel quite a distance to attend a performance of interest. I am happy I was given the chance to develop a course on “Chemistry and Technology in Art”, which I will offer in the spring semester of 2012. It will give me the opportunity to teach about all my three favourite subjects – chemistry, history, and art. This is still work in progress and I currently dedicate a significant fraction of my spare time to it.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I am passionate about the theatre and if I were not a chemist or a scientist, I would have enjoyed being a playwright or possibly an actor, provided I had the necessary talent. In fact, several years ago, I wrote two scripts for educational programs for children, which got to be on national TV in Bulgaria. That was an extremely rewarding and pleasant experience. The scripts were not exactly “plays” (although they were somewhat close) but the fact that I enjoyed writing them so much made me realize that I would actually be very happy if I could be a playwright.

Masami Kamigaito was born in 1965 in Nagoya, Japan. He received his B.S. (1988), M.S. (1990), and Ph.D. (1993) in polymer chemistry from Kyoto University under the direction of Professor Toshinobu Higashimura. After conducting postdoctoral research with Professor Mitsuo Sawamoto, he joined the faculty of Kyoto University in 1995, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1999. In 2003, he moved to Nagoya University and worked as an Associate Professor with Professor Yoshio Okamoto. In 2004, he was promoted to Professor. From 1997–1998, he worked as a visiting scientist at Stanford University with Professor Robert M. Waymouth. He was the recipient of the 2001 Arthur K. Doolittle Award of the ACS PMSE Division, the 2009 Wiley Polymer Science Award of the Society of Polymer Science, Japan, and the 2010 Japan IBM Science Award (Chemistry). His research interests include controlled radical and cationic polymerizations, the development and application of new polymerizations to precision polymer synthesis, and controlled polymerizations of renewable vinyl monomers.

Please follow the link for further information on Masami’s research group and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

My family. I have always been interested in the natural sciences. My father studied Physics at the University, as did my elder brother. My preference for Chemistry in high school and my desire to choose a different field from that of my father and brother led me to study Chemistry at the University.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00401H)

Our group has worked on controlling the molecular weight, stereochemistry, and monomer sequence in radical polymerization by designing polymerization systems, including monomers, initiators, catalysts, and additives. Since I collaborated with Professor Yoshio Okamoto and learned stereospecific radical polymerization, we began researching the simultaneous control of molecular weight and tacticity and its application for the synthesis of novel types of controlled polymers. The RAFT copolymerization of bulky methacrylate and methacrylic acid, which have different reactivities and stereoselectivities, permitted the synthesis of stereogradient polymers, in which the tacticity can be varied from syndiotacticity to isotacticity.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

This paper was submitted to a themed issue of New Methods of Polymer Synthesis, which was guest-edited by Professors Christopher Barner-Kowollik, Jean-François Lutz, and Sebastien Perrier, in which many readers working in this field have a strong interest. In addition, Polymer Chemistry is becoming one of the most attractive journals in polymer chemistry, as evidenced by the quality of the papers published therein.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

Most certainly, I will be attending the 9th Society of Polymer Science Japan International Conference (IPC2012) at Kobe in Japan from 11/12/2012 to 14/12/2012, which will be announced at http://www.spsj.or.jp/english-index.htm, because I am a member of the Program Committee.

How do you spend your spare times?

I play with my three (9, 7, and 3 years old) children.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

Archeologist. It is another profession I wanted to choose, because I had experiences in finding flint implements when I was a child.

Steve P. Armes graduated with BSc (1983) and PhD (1987) degrees from Bristol University. Post-doctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico from 1987 to 1989. Academic at Sussex University for fifteen years (promoted to full Professor in 2000) being moving to a Personal Chair at Sheffield University in 2004. Currently Director of the Sheffield Polymer Centre, academic director of METRC and also a director of Farapack Polymers, a polymer services spin-out company. Published around 415 papers (H-index = 74) and named inventor on 16 patent applications. Awarded the RSC Macro Group prize for polymer science in 2007 and the RSC Peter Day prize for soft matter research in 2010. Recipient of a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award (2005-2009). Current research interests include: RAFT aqueous dispersion polymerisation; controlled-structure water-soluble polymers; block copolymer self-assembly; colloidal nanocomposite particles; stimulus-responsive polymers; conducting polymer particles; biocompatible block copolymers; branched copolymers; polymer brushes via surface polymerisation; macromonomers; novel sterically-stabilised latexes; interfacially-active particles for the preparation of Pickering emulsions and colloidosomes.

Please follow the link for further information on Steve’s research group and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I had a very good Chemistry teacher at high school who worked for Courtaulds before going into education. It was (and probably still is) unusual for school teachers to have some industrial experience. He ‘lent’ me various chemicals from his chemicals store at school to do lots of experiments in my bedroom, including the obligatory stink bombs, chemical rockets and loud bangs. I don’t think that Health and Safety regulations would allow school teachers to inspire young students in quite the same way nowadays! I guess that my PhD supervisor Prof. Brian Vincent (now retired) also taught me the value of working closely with industry. Although my own PhD was not industrially sponsored, a substantial majority of my 45 or so PhD students have been either partially or fully-funded by a range of chemical companies. In addition to the financial support, I find that industrial supervisors provide a fresh perspective and often a new project direction, as well as lots of tough technical problems that academics would never dream up if we stayed in our ‘ivory towers’.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00406A)

In 1990 my first PhD student (Mike Gill, who works for 3M) serendipitously discovered a novel surfactant-free route to colloidal nanocomposite particles. This simply involves conducting polymerisations in the presence of an ultrafine silica sol, which becomes incorporated within the precipitating polymer nuclei. To date I have published around sixty papers in this area, so Mike’s chance finding has been quite fruitful. Applications range from the pragmatic, such as the development of next-generation paint formulations (as exemplified by BASF scientists) to the prosaic, such as synthetic mimics for silicate-based micro-meteorites (which came out of my decade-long collaboration with space scientists such as Prof. M. J. Burchell at U. Kent). Over the last five years at Sheffield we have explored various aqueous emulsion polymerisation routes to colloidal nanocomposite particles. In this latest Polymer Chemistry article, Dr. Hua Zou evaluated an aqueous dispersion polymerisation route based on 2-hydroxypropyl methacrylate.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

Polymer Chemistry is a high-quality new RSC journal that is a natural outlet for advances in synthetic polymer chemistry. Based on the articles published in it to date, it is likely to have a high impact factor and should provide strong competition for Polymer, J. Polym. Sci. Polym. Chem. and perhaps even Macromolecules.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

In 2012 I plan to attend the Spring MRS meeting in San Francisco and also the Warwick 2012 conference on synthetic polymer chemistry organised by Prof. Dave Haddleton and his colleagues. I haven’t decided whether to go to the Fall ACS meeting in Philadelphia yet.

How do you spend your spare time?

According to my wife, I spend my spare time working! I don’t have any particular hobbies, but I relax by reading the Guardian newspaper, watching football on TV and walking in the beautiful Peak District, which is a ten-minute drive from my house in Sheffield.

Which profession would you choose if you were not an academic?

At the age of fourteen, I had to choose certain optional courses at high school. I wanted to take a ‘practical’ course in car mechanics but my school said that I had to choose something more ‘academic’. The only other options were History and Chemistry. I knew that I didn’t care for History, so I chose Chemistry, although I didn’t really appreciate what I was choosing (this was in the days of ‘general science’ at high schools). That was definitely my lucky break. The school careers advice was to become an accountant, which sounded boring but lucrative (and still does). I completed my PhD studies in 1987, which was a period of economic boom in the UK. Every graduating PhD student I knew had multiple job offers because all the big companies (Unilever, BP, Shell, Exxon, ICI etc.) were competing with each other to recruit the best young scientists. That situation seems crazy compared to that facing young scientists today, although fortunately all the ex-members of my research group have secured good positions in either academia or in industry.  I received job offers from ICI, BP and Unilever but decided instead to take a two-year post-doctoral position at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. It was only towards the end of my two years in the USA that I began to wonder whether I could become an academic. I applied for just one Lectureship position, which was advertised at Sussex University. Although having some initial misgivings about whether I could actually do the job, I have never found myself wondering ‘what if’ over the last two decades. I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn a lot from my colleague Prof. Norman Billingham and Sussex was certainly a great place to be an academic for the first fifteen years of my career. It is clearly a lot tougher being a young academic today – there is much stronger competition for research funds.

Stephen Z. D. Cheng is an American polymer scientist and chemical engineer. Cheng is the current Dean of the College of Polymer Science & Polymer Engineering, and the R.C.Musson & Trustees Professor of Polymer Science at the University of Akron. Cheng became faculty as an assistant professor of polymer science at the University of Akron in October 1987. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1991, and further the professor of polymer science in 1995. Cheng became the Trustees Professor of Polymer Science in September 1998, and the Robert C. Musson Professor of Polymer Science in 2001, all at the University of Akron. From 2001 to 2005, Cheng was the Chairman of the Department of Polymer Science at the University of Akron, and he was appointed Dean of the College of Polymer Science & Polymer Engineering on August 1, 2007.

Wen-Bin Zhang, the key advisor in this topic, graduated in 2010 from the University of Akron with a PhD in Polymer Science under the supervision of Profs. Cheng and Quirk in the development of soft fullerene materials. He then stayed in the same group for one year to study molecular-nanoparticle-based functional materials with engineered hierarchical structures before he joins Prof. Tirrell’s group at the California Institute of Technology. His major research interest is to elucidate how a molecular function is transferred and amplified into a macroscopic property via hierarchical structure formation and to develop new materials for health- and energy-related applications.

Cheng’s research interests center on the condensed states in polymers, liquid crystals, hybrids, surfactants and micelles, and focuses on the interactions, responses, dynamics, and structures of materials on varying length and time scales in which the material itself embodies the technology.  His research activities include investigations of transition thermodynamics and kinetics in metastable states, ordered structures and morphologies, surface and interface structures in electronic and optical materials and functional materials.

Please follow the link for further information on Stephen’s research group and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

The ability to precisely tailor a macromolecule’s structure is indispensable to the development of novel functional materials and the elucidation of structure-property relationship. Our group’s primary focus is on the solid state structure of polymers. However, since my collaborators on the chemistry side are retiring, our group has to do chemistry. Now my group is half physics, half chemistry. The chemistry subgroup is led by Dr. Wen-Bin Zhang.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00435B)

Shape amphiphiles are a novel and intriguing class of materials. With rigid shape and versatile interactions, they are promising in forming diverse hierarchical structures. [60]Fullerene is an interesting and versatile building block, however, its precise functionalization is difficult, particularly in polymers. We would like to put this buckyball to any position of the polymer chain in a controlled fashion and requires minimum purification. And we did it by using “click” chemistry and a highly reactive fulleryne that is developed in our group.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

Polymer Chemistry is a new journal in polymer area and is receiving more and more attention. We believe that publishing the paper in Polymer Chemistry can certainly help the paper to be read by a broad scope of readers.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

ACS meeting next March in San Dieago.

How do you spend your spare times?

In my spare time, I exercise by playing Pingpong with my students. I enjoy poems, calligraphy, and violin.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

Science is my favourite. I guess, if not science, perhaps something related to it.

Pr. Mathias Destarac was born in Nogent sur Marne, France, in 1970. He undertook his undergraduate studies in France at the University of Montpellier and obtained his “Diplome d’Ingenieur” in 1993 in the field of materials science. He received his PhD in 1997 from the University of Montpellier for his studies on controlled radical polymerization. He then got a postdoctoral fellow position in Pr. Matyjaszewski’s group at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittbursgh, USA, where he focused his research work on atom transfer radical polymerization. He moved to Rhodia France in late 1998 to undertake the challenge of industrial research. His Rhodia research has mainly focussed on developing the RAFT/MADIX polymerization. Over the course of his career at Rhodia, he occupied successive positions as Senior Research Fellow, Project Manager and Scientific Expert. He originated and supervised a great deal of academic collaborations on various aspects of polymerization chemistry.

He left industry for academia in 2007 when he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the University Paul Sabatier of Toulouse, France. He started his own research group (Free-Radical Polymerization: Macromolecular Engineering and Architectures) in the Fundamental and Heterochemistry Laboratory. His research interests lie in various fields related to controlled radical polymerization (mostly RAFT) including the design of novel controlling agents, polymerization kinetics, double hydrophilic and amphiphilic controlled architectures, and polymer-inorganic nanohybrids.

He published sixty scientific articles, contributed three book chapters and was co-inventor for more than sixty patents.

Please follow the link for further information on Mathias’s research group and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

 What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I was studying sciences and had the luck to meet a very inspirational chemistry teacher who made me want to find out more. Polymers came later, once again after I met an excellent teacher.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00209K)

During my years working in industry, one of my main research topics of interest was the synthesis of amphiphilic block copolymers and their use in various fields of applications as emulsion stabilisers. When I moved to academia, I met Dr. Jean-Daniel Marty who is an expert in the physicochemical behavior of polymers in unusual media. We thought that combining our two fields of expertise would lead to interesting science such as our project described in this paper on the solubility behavior of new RAFT/MADIX amphiphilic block copolymers in supercritical carbon dioxide.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

I was excited that the Royal Society of Chemistry was setting up a journal in my field. After I read the first couple of issues, I thought it would  quickly become a high impact journal.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

2011 was the international year of chemistry, so I attended many interesting conferences in my field. Next year will be quieter and so far, I plan to attend Warwick 2012, UK, next July. I also wish to mention an event special to my heart: next June (5-7) in Toulouse, I co-organize the first French conference on synthesis, properties and applications of amphiphilic copolymers (Copamphi 2012). More details about the event will come out soon !

How do you spend your spare times?

I work hard, but I try to spend as much time as possible with my family and friends. My ideal day would be a morning playing with my kids followed by a long lunch with good food and good company with an indie rock soundtrack, afterwards a siesta and then another long dinner with everyone I love around me.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I think I would like to be a guitar player but I never had the time to learn.