MACRO GROUP UK
POLYMER PHYSICS GROUP
BULLETIN
The Pure and Applied Macromolecular Chemistry Group (Macro Group UK) is a joint
group of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Society of Chemical Industry.
The Polymer Physics Group is a joint group of
the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Issue Number 57
January 2002
CONTENTS
Editorial .........................................................................................................3
From the Chairman........................................................................................4
Macro Group News .......................................................................................6
Annual General Meeting............................................................................6
Nomination for MacroGroupUK Committee ............................................7
Macro Group Medal and Young Researchers Awards Presentation.........8
Recent Developments in Radical Polymerization.........................................9
Polymer Physics Group Biennial Meeting Report......................................11
Book Discounts for Macro Group Members ..............................................13
Conference & Meeting Reports ..................................................................14
Advertising within the BULLETIN and Newsletter...................................22
Deadline for issue 58 of the BULLETIN: 31 May 2002.
Items for inclusion should be emailed (preferably) or sent to:
Dr NR Cameron ([email protected])
Dept. of Chemistry, University of Durham, South Rd., Durham DH1 3LE
2
Editorial
Welcome to issue 57 of the BULLETIN, the third to go out in entirely
electronic format. Since changing to a web-based format, the production
of the bulletin has been greatly speeded up – having said that, this issue is
published considerably later than I’d intended, so please accept my
apologies! Items of particular note are the AGM plus request for
nominations to the Committee, and the Macro Group 2001 medal and
Young Researchers Award, for which nominations are also required. The
deadline for these is imminent but I would guess that the Committee may
accept nominations that are slightly late.
I notice that a year ago, in issue 55, I mentioned that the RSC are to
provide us with a listserver. I have been informed that this is now
operational and we will be instructed on how to use it in the near future –
watch this space.
Best wishes
Neil Cameron
University of Durham
Contributions for inclusion in the BULLETIN should be emailed
(preferably) or sent to:
Dr NR Cameron, [email protected]
Dept. of Chemistry, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE
Tel: 0191 374 3108 Fax: 0191 384 4737
The deadline for contributions for the next issue is May 31st 2002.
To save the editor's time, electronic contributions are preferred, either on
floppies or as e-mail attachments, in Word for Windows format.
Items for inclusion in the Calendar of Events should be sent to:
Miss Beverly Robinson, IRC in Polymer Science and Technology,
University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT
Tel: 0113 2333811 Fax: 0113 2333846 E-mail: [email protected]
3
From the Chairman
First of all, may I wish all Macro Group members a Happy New Year! I
hope that 2001 treated you kindly and that 2002 will be even better.
This is just a short report, since the Chairman of Macro Group traditionally
presents a more comprehensive report on the activities of the Group over
the previous 12 month period at the AGM, and our AGM is not now very
far off. Please make a note now in your diaries that the 2002 AGM will
take place in the Chemistry Department at the University of Sheffield on
Wednesday, 20th March at 5.45 pm, immediately following an afternoon
meeting on “Some Recent Developments in Polymer Synthesis” at which
Phil Hodge (Manchester), Stefan Bon (Warwick) and Andy Holmes
(Cambridge) will be speaking, to which all are invited, and for which there
is no charge. I just ask that you let me or Linda Swanson (MGUK
Secretary) know as soon as possible if you intend to be present to help us
choose a room of an appropriate size and to arrange suitable quantities of
refreshments.
Whilst on the subject of the AGM, please note also that we require five
new Ordinary Members for the Macro Group Committee to serve over the
period 2002-2005, and that we also require a new Treasurer to replace
Marcia Hohn, whose period of office finishes this time around. So, please
let us have your nominations, as soon as possible, each supported by brief
biographical details of the nominee and a statement from the person
nominated that he or she is willing to serve if elected. Note too that the
Treasurer must have served previously on the Committee, at least as an
Ordinary Member.
Other meetings and conferences to look out for, in addition to the AGM,
and in which the Macro Group is involved are:
Organic-Inorganic Hybrids II, 28 – 30 May, 2002, Guildford,
Surrey
(See: http://www.pra.org.uk/conferences/hybrids02.htm)
Polymer Synthesis, 27 July – 1 August, 2002, Warwick
(See:
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/Chemistry/polymers/conference.ht
ml)
Frontiers of Polymer Colloids II, 2 – 4 September, 2002, Sheffield
(Contact: [email protected])
Synchrotron Radiation in Polymer Science II, 4 – 6 September,
2002, Sheffield
(See: http://www.polymercentre.org.uk/srps/)
4
Looking further ahead to 2003, sees the Macro Group involved in the
organisation of Materials Chemistry 4, and Materials Discussion 6, the
latter on the theme of Controlled Polymer Architectures – from Micro to
Mesoscale, but more of these anon.
Over the past six months, the Macro Group Committee has been
discussing, amongst other things, the changing face of polymer science in
the UK, especially in industry, and the role that the Group should be
seeking to play in fostering and promoting polymer chemistry in future.
Intimately connected with this is the role and position of the Macro Group
within the RSC and it is likely that the position at least will change in the
light of the increasing influence and importance of the Materials Forum
within the RSC, on which Macro Group is represented. We shall report on
our deliberations in due course.
In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you at our AGM in Sheffield in
March.
John Ebdon
January 2002
5
Macro Group News
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The A.G.M. of the Pure and Applied Macromolecular Group
(MacroGroupUK) will take place after the Recent Developments in
Polymer Synthesis Mini-symposium at 5.45 pm on March 20th 2002 in
Lecture Theatre 6, Department of Chemistry, Dainton Building, University
of Shefffield. There is no charge for attending either the AGM or the
Mini-symposium, but we would appreciate it if those intending to be
present at either (or both) could inform Professor John Ebdon, Department
of Chemistry, Dainton Building, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7HF.
Tel: 0114 2229562; email: [email protected]
Elections to MacroGroupUK Committee.
Nominations are required for the position of Treasurer plus five ordinary
members of the Committee (NB the Treasurer must have served previously
on the Committee, at least as an Ordinary Member). These arise from the
retirements of Drs Hohn, Rannard, Mills, Turner, Hamley and MacDonald.
The Group constitution requires that persons elected as Ordinary Members
must include at least one member of each of the parent bodies (RSC or
SCI).
Nominations should be made on the form enclosed and should arrive at the
Group Secretary no later than January 31st 2001. Nominations should be
signed by a proposer and seconder (both members of the Group) and be
accompanied by the nominees’ agreement to serve and a short biographical
sketch..
Linda Swanson
University of Sheffield
6
Nomination for MacroGroupUK Committee
I hereby nominate ___________________________for the post of (Treasurer / Ordinary Member)
Proposer: __________________________
(Print name)
_____________________________
(Signature)
Seconder: __________________________
(Print name)
_____________________________
(Signature)
I __________________________________ agree to serve and am a member of RSC / SCI
(Name and Signature)
(Please delete as appropriate)
Brief biographical details of the candidate:
7
Macro Group Medal and Young Researchers
Awards Presentation
The winners of the 2000 Macro Group UK Medal and Lectureship
(Professor John Bevington) and the 1999 Macro Group UK Young
Researchers Award (Dr Andrew Slark) were presented with their medals
during the Recent Developments in Radical Polymerization Symposium,
held at the SCI Headquarters in London, December 12th, 2001 (see p. 9 for
meeting report).
From left to right: Professor John Bevington, Lancaster University, Winner
of the 2000 Macro Group Medal; Dr Andrew Slark, National Starch
Adhesives, Winner of the 1999 Macro Group Young Researchers Medal;
with Professor John Ebdon, Chairman of Macro Group UK.
Nominations for the 2001 Macro Group Medal and Lectureship and the
Young Researchers Award are now required; click here for details
8
Recent Developments in Radical Polymerization
Wednesday, 12th December, 2001
SCI, 14/15 Belgrave Square, London
Conferences and meetings on radical polymerization are relatively few and
far between, despite the continuing, and indeed growing, importance of
radical chain reactions to the manufacture of a large range of commodity
and specialist polymers. Recent years have seen the refinement not only of
traditional free radical methods but also the development of new
techniques able to give polymers with more precisely controlled molecular
weights and with narrower molecular weight distributions. This meeting,
organised by the Macro Group in association with the University of
Sheffield Polymer Centre, reflected both the refinements to the traditional
methods and also the newer approaches.
The morning session commenced with a talk from Professor Steve Armes
(Sussex) who spoke about his work over the past few years on the
synthesis, using atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), of watersoluble polymers of controlled structure and of nanoscopic core-shell
polymer particles. His work highlighted the fact that ATRP can proceed
much more rapidly in water than in organic solvents and that it lends itself
to the preparation of a variety of novel hydrophilic/hydrophobic structures.
He talked also about some very recent work on the synthesis of colloidal
zwitterionic particles, the cores and shells of which can invert when pH is
changed, and of particles with crosslinked shells that have the potential to
act as release agents.
Professor Peter Lovell (UMIST) followed with discussion of recent work
on elucidating the extents and types of chain branching in acrylate and
vinyl acetate emulsion polymerizations. He convincingly argued that
transfer to polymer, and hence chain branching, was unavoidable in the
later stages of polymerization as the ratio of polymer to monomer
increased. However, such branching could either be enhanced or reduced
by judicious choice of comonomers, which could either introduce
comonomer units more reactive in transfer or introduce radicals less likely
to engage in hydrogen abstraction. Chain branching has significant
consequences for the properties of polymers and hence its understanding
and control are of commercial importance.
The third lecture was given by Dr Roshan Jachuck from the Chemical
Engineering Department at Newcastle University. Roshan is relatively new
to radical polymerization but has already made an impact by demonstrating
9
that rates of radical polymerization in bulk, and near bulk, monomers can
be greatly enhanced, but still controlled, when the polymerizations are
carried out in novel spinning disc reactors. The origins of the effects are
still not properly understood but may be associated with reduced rates of
termination, perhaps allied to increased rates of propagation and/or
increased efficiencies of initiation. Industrial interest in Roshan’s
developments is already apparent.
The afternoon session was taken up by two lectures, each given by a recent
winner of a Macro Group medal. The first was by Dr Andrew Andrew
Slark, National Starch Adhesives, who was presented before his lecture
with the 1999 Macro Group Young Researchers Medal by Professor John
Ebdon, the Chairman of Macro Group. Andrew spoke about his free
radical routes to acrylic resins in which use of difunctional monomers to
introduce chain branching is combined with use of chain transfer agents to
prevent crosslinking. The result is essentially a hyperbranched polymer
having many of the properties associated with a dendrimer but made in one
pot by a very simple procedure. Resins made by this route have already
found commercial applications in a number of important areas.
The final lecture was given by Professor John Bevington, Lancaster
University, who received the 2000 Macro Group Medal from Professor
Ebdon at the meeting in recognition of his outstanding (and continuing)
work over several decades on the fundamentals of radical polymerization.
In his talk, John spoke of the many milestones in his work over the years,
including some of the first uses of radiotracers to elucidate aspects of
initiation and termination in radical polymerization, more recent uses of
NMR spectroscopy to augment these findings, and very recent work on
chain transfer and the kinetics of inhibition. John’s talk was studded with
amusing reminiscences about other leading figures in polymer chemistry
whom he had met over the years, including the Nobel laureates, Paul Flory
and Giulio Natta.
The meeting attracted 70 participants, including the speakers, of whom 28
were students and 12 were from industry; all were treated to a splendidly
entertaining and informative day.
John Ebdon
December 2001
10
News
Polymer Physics Group Biennial Meeting Report
The Polymer Physics Group's Biennial Meeting was somewhat
overshadowed by the events of September 11th since the meeting was due
to start on the 12th. After discussion with such committee members as
could be contacted on the 11th, it was decided to continue with the
Biennial Meeting. Luckily, relatively few people were unable to attend
though Professor Thomas (one of the invited speakers) was unable to fly
from Boston and other prospective attendees were unable to fly from
Europe. A few last-minute program changes were made and a successful
meeting resulted.
The meeting was distinguished by the first presentation of the new
Founders' Prize (an engraved cut glass bowl) which went to Professor Sir
Sam Edwards FRS who gave the Founders' Lecture entitled "Can glasses
be as simple as melts?". Other presentations were a working model steam
engine to Prof. Alan Windle in recognition of his period as Chairman of
the group from 1993 - 1999 and an engraved tankard to Prof. Graham Lake
in recognition of his services as secretary and treasurer from 1993 - 2001.
The Biennial General Meeting of the Polymer Physics Group dealt with
the following issues:
• the formal approval of new constitution recognising the affiliation of
the group with the Institute of Materials
• the formal criteria for the award of the Founders' Prize
• the mechanism of determining the recipient of the prize (recognising
that committee members may be nominated)
• the election of the new committee and officers for the next two years
All group members were circulated with full information on these matters
prior to the meeting.
The constitution was passed as circulated. It was agreed that the Founders'
Prize should be for contributions to Polymer Physics (rather than Polymer
11
Science in general) and that the recipient need not necessarily be British
though the work for which the prize was given should have some contact
with British polymer physics. The proposed mechanism for determining
the recipient of the prize was approved.
The new committee is listed on the Polymer Physics Group web site
Professor G.R. Davies
Chairman, Polymer Physics Group
12
Book Discounts for Macro Group Members
The publishers listed below offer discounts to members of the Macro
Group UK, please make use of this service. The details are correct as of 29
January 2002.
Wiley : 25 %
Enquiries / orders to: Customer Services, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Baffin
Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1UD. No contact named, but orders
must be in writing requesting Macro Group Discount. Delivery charge
payable.
Oxford University Press: 20 %
Enquiries / orders to: Justine Cornish, Oxford University Press; tel.
(01865) 267498; fax (01865) 267734; email [email protected]
Elsevier: 20 %
Enquiries / orders to: Tracey Hatt, Elsevier Science, The Boulevard,
Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxon OX5 1GB; tel. (01865) 843706
Kluwer Academic Publishers: 15 %
Enquiries / orders to: Mrs Els Rens, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Spuiboulevard 50, P.O. Box 989, 3300 AZ Dordrecht, The Netherlands;
tel. 00 31 78 639 2225; fax. 00 31 78 639 2300; email [email protected].
Please quote membership no. (RSC or SCI) on orders; postage and
handling not included.
13
Conference & Meeting Reports
World Polymer Congress IUPAC 2000, 38th Macromolecular IUPAC
Symposium, Warsaw, Poland, July 9 – 14, 2000
I arrived in Warsaw from Sheffield (via Brussels) to attend the ‘World
Polymer Congress IUPAC 2000, 38th Macromolecular IUPAC
Symposium’. A short courtesy bus ride took me to my hotel, the Forum,
which, like most of the conference hotels, was located in the business
district of the city just a ten minute walk from the conference venue. I
arrived on Saturday and as the conference didn’t start until the Monday I
had a day and a half to explore the city.
Warsaw is an impressive city, especially when you consider that 85% of it
was destroyed in 1944. The city was rebuilt in the years following the war,
although only the Royal Castle and the surrounding Old Town were
painstakingly reconstructed from pictures rendered in the 17th and 18th
centuries. The rest was built in typical late 1940’s style but now a large
modernisation is underway following the downfall of communism in 1989
and the feeling is one of great change and optimism for a prosperous future
after many years of oppression. Already the city is host to several large
(and pricey) department stores alongside the ubiquitous MacDonald’s,
Burger King, KFC, and Pizza Hut, but if you ignore these then there are
many bars and restaurants serving excellent local cuisine at very
reasonable prices. The most interesting part of the city was the old town
with some of the original town walls and a good local market.
In the evening I met up with the rest of the Sheffield delegation and, after
running through the hotel’s extensive vodka menu, we ventured out to
some of the nearby bars, the closest of which was an outdoor marquee
serving ‘Strong Beer’ (7% a.b.v) at just £1 a pint (which the locals drank
through a straw). The bar also, rather handily, served large platefuls of
doner kebab meat which introduced us to the Polish love of coleslaw
which seems to be the staple food.
The conference venue was the impressive 19th century main building of the
Warsaw University of Technology. Monday and Tuesday were devoted to
plenary lectures, two of which were given by the Nobel laureates Prof.
Jean-Marie Lehn and Sir Harry Kroto. These lectures gave an excellent
overview of the diverse topic covered by the conference. The format
changed for the Wednesday and Thursday, each of which started with two
plenary lectures, one of which was given by the winner of the international
young scientist competition Dr. Craig Hawker who gave an excellent talk
14
entitled ‘Combinatorial Approaches to Polymeric Materials using Living
Free Radical Procedures’. After the plenary lectures the conference split
into fifteen parallel sessions held in the many lecture theaters and seminar
rooms off the main hall. The sessions covered a wide range of topics
including synthesis, the many different types of polymerisation, theory and
modeling, biomedical polymers, and the session of main interest to me
‘Electrical, Optical, and Dielectric Properties of Polymers’. These sessions
consisted of two invited lectures and several contributed papers and again
highlighted the wide array of research been done within each section.
Wednesday and Thursday evenings saw the presentation of nearly 700
posters, including my contribution entitled ‘Conjugated Liquid Crystals for
Polarised Electroluminescence’. This generated a good amount of interest,
most notably from one Prof. J-M Lehn.
The conference had a good social program including a general mixer, a
concert, and the conference buffet, all of which provided good
opportunities to share ideas and experiences with the some of the 1,267
active participants.
My week in Warsaw was a great experience, the city was impressive and
the opportunity to meet some of the top chemists in the field was one I
gratefully accepted. The conference ran smoothly for which the organizing
committee should be congratulated. I would like to thank my supervisor,
Dr. M.L.Turner, and the Macrogroup UK for giving me the chance to
attend this very worthwhile and enjoyable meeting.
Paul Glarvey
University of Sheffield.
American Chemical Society 220th National Meeting, Washington D.C.,
USA, 20-24th August 2000.
Washington D.C. was the setting for the 220th meeting of the American
Chemical Society. With over 5500 papers in more than 600 technical
sessions sponsored by 27 divisions, it was the largest conference I had ever
participated in. As this was my first visit to the USA, I was looking
forward to attending such a prestigious conference held in the capital. With
the Technical Program containing a welcome letter from Bill Clinton, and
the Mayor of the District of Columbia proclaiming August 20-24th 2000 as
“Chemistry Week” in Washington D.C., I felt honoured to be given the
opportunity to present two papers at this conference.
15
I arrived in Washington on the Friday night, a little later than I anticipated
due to aircraft problems (I never seem to have straightforward journeys
when flying!). This allowed me a day to adjust to the time difference, find
my way around the various conference venues, explore some of the sites of
the capital, and have my photo taken with Bill and Hilary (well, cardboard
cut outs of them!).
The division which I was interested in was the PMSE (Polymeric
Materials:Science and Engineering) division, the venue for which was the
extremely grand JW Marriott hotel near the White House. The PMSE talks
were split into four sections, “Coatings for Transportation”, “Tess Award
Symposium on UV Degradation of Polymers”, “Organic Thin Films for
Photonic Applications” and “Fire and Polymers”. As my PhD was
concerned with the thermal degradation of polymers, the Fire and Polymers
section was of most interest to me.
The Fire and Polymers symposium was organised by Prof Chuck Wilkie
and Dr Gordon Nelson, both of whom have contributed greatly to this area
of research. The symposium commenced on Sunday morning with
introductory remarks from the organisers then a most interesting session on
“Fire-Smart Polymers”. The afternoon session was “Fire Retardant
Systems I”, which included my first paper “Solid State NMR Study on the
Effects of Fire Retardants on the Thermal Degradation of a Flexible
Polyurethane Foam” which received interest from quite a few attendees. A
reception was held on the Sunday night which allowed me to meet other
delegates and to discuss some publications which I was jointly working on
with Professor Wilkie and his students.
Monday commenced with the “Fire Retardant Nanocomposites” session,
followed by “Fire Retardant Systems II”. In the evening, we made our way
to the Washington Convention Centre for the “Sci-mix” session, a poster
session covering work from all the divisions. I was impressed with the
variety and high standard of work that was presented. A fellow PhD
student and I met quite a few other students there and afterwards we all
headed off to sample the Washington nightlife.
“Fire Performance” was the first session of Tuesday, followed by “Halogen
Flame-Retardant Systems”, the session which included my final paper
“Solid State 13C and in-situ 1H NMR Investigation of Char Formation in
PVC and Polychloroprene Degradation”. The PMSE poster session was
held in the evening and provided an informal opportunity to discuss the
work being presented, and also allowed me to talk to some delegates about
my own work in greater detail. As there were other divisions holding such
sessions simultaneously, it provided a chance to have a look at work from
16
other areas of chemistry being presented. By the end of the session, our
“social group” had now vastly extended in numbers and we all headed out
for our last tour of the pubs of Washington!
Having made the long journey to the States, I had decided to extend my
stay by a few days and headed for Atlantic City to meet up with some
friends who were in New Jersey for the summer. Finally, we made a two
day visit to New York where shopping and the bar on the top of the World
Trade Centre provided memorable entertainment.
After thoroughly enjoying the conference and my travels, I was subjected
to yet another jinxed journey home. Three hours after leaving New York,
our flight had to turn back due to the generator failing, not the best way to
end your trip! I did, however, manage to arrive home safely on the second
attempt (after an unexpected 24hrs in Detroit) …..with the worst jet lag
ever!
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and found it extremely
rewarding both academically and socially. I was most impressed by the
standard and variety of work that was presented and it greatly enhanced my
knowledge of current research in the area of polymer degradation. I would
like to thank the Macro Group UK for awarding me the D.H. Richards
Memorial Bursary and my supervisors Prof Colin Snape and Dr John
Liggat for giving me the opportunity to attend this conference.
Caroline Dick
University of Strathclyde
SML ’01 – 3rd IUPAC Sponsored International Symposium on Free
Radical Polymerization Kinetics and Mechanism, Il Ciocco, Lucca,
Italy, 3 – 9 June 2001
According to the pre conference circulars SML stands for scientific
meeting Lucca. Checking the Rough Guide to Tuscany and Umbria it is
described as the most graceful of Tuscany’s provincial capitals and
described by Henry James as “a place overflowing with everything that
makes for ease, for plenty, for beauty, for interest and good example.”
Arriving in Pisa you might have been forgiven for thinking that the journey
had been in the wrong direction as we’d left a gloriously sunny Newcastle
morning to be greeted with brooding clouds and occasional lightning. The
only signs of having arrived in the right place were the designer shades of
the baggage handlers and the trademark wonky tower.
17
Official notice of where to meet the bus to the conference venue wasn’t
immediately visible but the distinctive sight of Dave Haddleton in shorts
pointed us in the right direction. The use of Lucca in the conference title
was a red herring as the bus skirted the town and drove on for another
40km. As it transpires the true location of Il Ciocco didn’t fit in with the
acronym SML and Lucca was used as the nearest big place beginning with
L. Instead the conference was held in Il Ciocco which is a four star hotel,
sports and conference centre perched at the top of a huge hill. This has the
twin benefits of affording spectacular views out over the Garfagna valley
and stopping people from nipping off into town for impromptu souvenir
shopping.
A conference dinner started things but most attendees seemed to simply be
glad to head off and catch an early night to recuperate from the travel.
The first full day concentrated on the fundamentals of free radical
polymerisation with a full day of lectures followed by a poster session.
There was an evening concert by a pianist brought with the substantial
presence from Göttingen University but I was too disturbed by his date of
birth being firmly in the eighties and instead spent the evening listening to
popular tunes of the seventies and eighties being ritually murdered by an
organist in the bar.
Tuesday was split between polymerisation in supercritical fluids in the
morning and polymer characterisation for the afternoon with Special
Lectures from I. V. Khudyakov of Alcatel Telecommunications Cable and
a lecture from Aubrey Jenkins on the early pioneers of polymer chemistry.
The evening was spent in another poster session.
The conference had a midweek break with the choice of day trips to Sienna
or Firenze on the Wednesday and were duly packed off with gargantuan
lunch bags and a feeling of déjà vu from primary school years onto the
buses and to our respective destinations. Having chosen Sienna, another of
the provincial capitals I spent the day being impressed by the scale and
grandeur of the architecture particularly the city cathedral which is
astonishingly beautiful and worth the visit even if you never looked at
anything else. The trip to Sienna also incorporated a stop off in San
Gimignano, also known as “the Medieval Manhattan” thanks to the towers
built by local families in displays of wealth and power.
Thursday lectures covered polymer reaction engineering in the morning
and controlled radical polymerisation for the afternoon. The lectures given
by Paul Tordo on design of nitroxide controlled radical polymerisation
agents and Bernadette Charleux on controlled radical polymerisation in
18
dispersed media being of particular significance to the work we do at
Durham. This was followed by a late afternoon poster session. The evening
started with a reception and presentation to Ton German on the occasion of
his retirement and poster prize winners. This was followed by a meal in
Professor German’s honour.
Despite the twin factors of the previous nights meal and following the UK
general election coverage we again had a full lecture program on the
Friday covering controlled radical polymerisation and polymerisation in
heterogenous systems. The conference closed with a final poster session in
the evening.
I would like to thank the Macro Group UK for the award of a
D.H.Richards Bursary to allow me to attend and present a poster at what
was both a useful and enjoyable conference.
Alistair Reid
University of Durham
Polymers in the Third Millennium, Universite Montpellier II, Sciences
et Techniques du Languedoc, 2 – 6 September 2001
When I arrived in France late Saturday night, the first thing that occurred
to me was how warm it was in comparison to Sheffield. As it was dark
there was not a lot to see on the trip to the hotel, but I do remember
thinking that Montpellier was a lot bigger then I had expected. I arrived at
the hotel quite late and immediately decided on an early night as I had been
travelling for most of the day.
The conference itself did not start officially until Monday morning but it
was possible to register on Sunday evening if that was convenient. I
decided to spend the day exploring the city, and what a beautiful place to
explore. Montpellier is situated in the south of France, the weather is
fantastic, though I was informed by several locals that it had cooled down
considerably from earlier in the year. The city itself is very old and some
of the architecture was magnificent, with loads of small narrow streets, and
little fountains situated in secluded spots. There was also an abundance of
little cafés and restaurants with lots of traditional French fare and some
with a distinct Italian influence. After several hours wandering round in
awe I managed to locate a tram stop without too much difficulty and made
my way out of the city centre to the University.
The conference was to be staged at the University, and I managed to
register and discover where the four parallel sessions were to be held on
19
the following day. The conference was to run over four days, with over
300 delegates, from all over Europe, Japan, China, India and America. The
conference was split into four main areas, “Polymers in the Living
Environment”, “Polymer Synthesis and Modification”, “Polymers in
Electrical and Electromagnetic Environments” and “Structure and
Characterization of Polymers”. I decided to try and sample a few talks
from each area while trying to attend all of the lectures on Polymer
Photochemistry, as this is my main area of research.
My first stop was the opening lecture of the conference “Supramolecular
Polymer Chemistry” presented by J-M. Lehn, which centred on the design
of components of systems that can “self-organise” or self assemble and are
held together by intermolecular forces. I spent the rest of the morning
having a general look around and attending talks that I thought might be of
interest. I must confess to making a special effort to attend the talk on
“Self-Assembling Hydrogen-Bonded Polymers” as it was presented by
another Irish delegate, G. Armstrong, and I was interested in discovering
what is being done in the field of polymer science at home. The
presentations finished at around 5 pm and by then it was time to go and
check out the poster session with the all-important wine reception. This
was a good opportunity to socialise with the other delegates although it
wasn’t a really late night for me, as we had to be up early in the morning.
Tuesday’s talks started at the same time as the day before, with a very
interesting overview on “Biomaterials” presented by L. Ambrosio,
needless to say this is not directly related to my field of study, however, it
gave a good overview of hydrogels and the reason why there is so much
interest in this general area of research. I followed this up by attending the
talk on “Spatial Charges in Luminescent Conjugated Polymers” by F.
Feller, as I though it might be an interesting way of studying Luminescent
polymers, I was not disappointed and this work presented an interesting
study on the effects of space charges in thin films which have potential
applications in light emitting diodes. The conference finished early and I
managed to find my way to the bus station and catch the local bus to the
coast, which was about 15 miles away. After alI, I could not be this close
to the Mediterranean Sea and not go for a splash. It was all that I expected,
beautiful blue sea and lovely soft sandy beaches and I had a really relaxing
afternoon soaking up the sun; although I did recognise a lot of people on
the beach, so it appears I wasn’t the only one with this brain wave!
I actually didn’t attend the conference banquette as nerves were beginning
to set in and I had to present my talk on “Polymers for Energy Harvesting”
on the following morning. Thankfully the talk went well, aside from a
little hitch when the chairman had trouble pronouncing my name. The talk
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itself was well received and I managed to answer all of the questions
without too much difficulty. I spent the rest of the day attending quite a
variety of talks on many different areas of research including the use of
polymers as insulating materials for power cables and different
characterisation techniques applied to polymer analysis. The evening
wound down with a poster session and wine reception and a chance to see
what different research groups around the world are doing in the diverse
area of polymers.
The last morning of the conference arrived and although I would not miss
the early starts, I had really enjoyed the whole experience. I particularly
enjoyed the opening lecture “Experimental Aspects of Polymer Dynamics”
presented by D. Richter even though use of neutron scattering techniques
is not one that I am very familiar with. I then attended some talks on
different types of hydrophobically modified polymers and the different
techniques used to study them, such as environmental scanning electronic
microscopy. The conference itself was a brilliant experience, it was a good
opportunity to meet people with a research interest similar to my own and
discuss ideas with them. I would like to thank both of my supervisors
Prof. Ian Soutar, and Dr. Linda Swanson for making it possible for me to
attend this conference. I would also like to thank the Macro Group for
funding in the form of a D.H. Richards Memorial Bursary.
Patricia Callinan
Sheffield University
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