Polymer Chemistry Blog

Andy Cooper obtained his Ph.D at the University of Nottingham in 1994 for the study of organometallic reaction mechanisms. He then held an 1851 Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, working on polymerization reactions and phase transfer processes in supercritical fluids (1995–1997). He next held a Ramsay Memorial Research Fellowship at the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis in Cambridge, working on heterogeneous polymerizations in supercritical CO₂ (1997–1999). He joined the University of Liverpool in January 1999 as a Royal Society University Research Fellow, where he now holds a personal chair. He is the founding Director of the Centre for Materials Discovery (established in 2007) and was a cofounder of a spin-out company, IOTA NanoSolutions, in 2005. He was Head of Chemistry and then Head of the School of Physical Sciences in the period 2007–2011. In addition to research in polymer chemistry, he has interests in crystal engineering, colloid science, and chemical problems related to energy.

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

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

The constant albeit small chance of discovering something really remarkable and important, this is what makes research so exciting.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper?

We published our first paper on conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) in 2007 (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed., 2007, 46, 8574). There have been several nice follow-up studies since, but the most interesting have exploited the combination of extended conjugation and porosity in these materials. For example, one of the best papers in this area was published last year by Prof. Donglin Jiang (Angew. Chem., Int. Ed., 2011, 50, 8753) describing supercapacitive CMPs that rival nanocarbons. For these applications it will be important to control both porosity and also physical properties related to conjugation, such as optical band gap or charge mobility.  In this new study, we set out to synthesize triazine analogues of our first CMP materials. We found that the materials, while amorphous, were ‘isoreticular’ in the sense that changing from benzene to triazine nodes does not affect the microporosity.  The triazine CMPs, however, showed slightly higher CO₂ uptakes and optical band gaps that can be varied by copolymerization.   Variation of band gap could be useful in applications like photocatalysis.  Prof. Wenbin Lin at UNC has shown that related materials are good photocatalysts.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

I’ve found that the RSC journals have fast publication times and good editing and refereeing.  I’m sure Polymer Chemistry will not be an exception.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

2012 ACS meetings (both Spring and Fall), Pott Shrigley, and of course Warwick 2012.

How do you spend your spare times?

I haven’t had time for ‘hobbies’ as such for years, but I did recently take up mountain biking.  Perhaps this signifies a mid-life crisis…

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

A stunt man.  You get to live in a trailer.

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.

A. Levent Demirel received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering & Physics from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, in 1989, and Ph.D. degree in Physics from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA in 1996. He was postdoctoral researcher at FOM Institute AMOLF in Amsterdam in 1996-1997. He joined Koç University Chemistry Department as faculty member in 1997 where he was promoted to full professor in 2008. Currently, he is the Associate Dean of College of Sciences. He has received TÜBİTAK (Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Council) Young Scientist Award in 1999, TÜBA (Turkish Academy of Sciences) Young Scientist Award in 2001 and Koç University Werner von Siemens Excellence Award in 2003. In 2006, he has been elected as associate member of Turkish Academy of Sciences. His current research interests are in the field of surface and polymer physical chemistry.

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

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

Though my current research is in the field of physical chemistry, I am a physicist by training. I will be happy as long as I stay in science as a major, whether it is physics or chemistry. I was fond of numbers, calculations and equations as a kid. My aunt was a primary school teacher at a village. When I was about 5 years old, I attended her classes for a while where I met numbers and calculations first time. Then at the high school I had very inspiring physics, chemistry and math teachers. I started as an electrical engineering undergraduate, but my desire to understand single transistor dominated over analyzing complex electronic circuits and I went for PhD in Physics at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I later switched to soft matter physics, by chance, and worked under the supervision of Prof. Steve Granick on viscoelasticity of molecularly thin liquid films. Then at postdoc, I worked on thin films of liquid crystals and block copolymers. There is a lot overlapping in physics and chemistry when you work on soft matter and I naturally moved into the field of physical chemistry after starting as a faculty member at Koç University Chemistry Department.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00463H)

The question we are after is quite fundamental and practical: Why are initially clear homogeneous polymer solutions not stable in time and agglomerates formed? Chemists do not like it when chemicals can not be dissolved in a solvent for further analysis or processing, but frequently encounter it in the lab especially with macromolecules. The change in temperature, pH may trigger such irreversible agglomeration among other reasons. Poly(2-isopropyl-2-oxazoline) was known to form irreversible crystalline fibers when kept above cloud point temperature for extended times. We expected the same for poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEOX) as similar interactions are in charge, but could not observe any structure formation for a long time. My PhD student Pınar Tatar Güner was patient enough to wait long (several weeks) to observe that crystalline PEOX fibers are also formed. Then, we controlled this self-assembly process by electrolytes and characterized these fibers structurally.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

As much as I can, I regularly check the contents of every new issue of the major journals in my field. Since its first issue in 2010, I found many high quality papers, very relevant to my research interests in every issue of Polymer Chemistry. It already had high impact on my research and I decided to send it to Polymer Chemistry.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I plan to attend to ACS Spring Meeting in San Diego, USA, in March 2012 where there will be a session on poly(2-oxazoline)s.

How do you spend your spare times?

My wife and I like travelling and spending time in nature.

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

I would choose a profession where I can spend more time out in the field – being a farmer, an archeologist, a field biologist, a geologist.

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.

David M. Lynn received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of South Carolina in 1994 and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech in 1999, where he worked under the supervision of Professor Robert H. Grubbs. After a postdoctoral stint at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Professor Robert Langer, he joined the faculty in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2002. His current interests include the design of functional polymers, macromolecular assemblies, and surfaces/interfaces, with a particular focus on the development of new materials platforms that address problems of biomedical and biotechnological importance.

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

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

That’s a good question – I guess it’s worth it every once in a while to stop and think about how you got to where you are. I started out as a biology major in college and jumped ship to chemistry after my first taste of organic chemistry. My first real push in the direction of polymer chemistry came through a summer research experience with Harry Gibson at Virginia Tech. Looking back I’m not sure that I accomplished very much that summer (sorry, Harry!), but I had a lot of fun – and if it weren’t for the fun parts I’m not sure I’d have continued down this path.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper?

Well, this paper is a review article, so our first objective here was of course to try to provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of research on azlactone-functionalized polymers and materials. There’s been quite a bit of work going on in this area by many different groups over the last decade, and hopefully this review will contribute to a growing awareness of it. My own interest in these reactive polymers is motivated by many things (read the review!), but all of our current efforts grew out of some interactions a few years ago with Steve Hielmann at 3M. Steve was the first person to bring azlactone chemistry to my attention, and he and his colleagues have been very supportive along the way.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

This was an invited review, so the choice was easy in this case. But we’ve had our eye on the journal from the outset – it has certainly come a long way in a very short amount of time.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I’ve got a new baby coming in January, so I’ve tried to reduce travel for a bit. But I already know I’ll be at the World Biomaterials Congress in China in June and the Controlled Release Society meeting in Quebec in July.

How do you spend your spare time?

I don’t have a lot of spare time, but I try to ride my bike as often and as far as I can when I do. I guess it depends on what you like, but southwestern Wisconsin has an endless number of unbelievable roads and fantastic hilly terrain that makes for great riding – at for least for about seven months out of the year (it gets a bit cold here in the winter).

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

Good question. I need to think about a backup plan. Am I too old to be an astronaut?

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.