Applied Polymer Chemistry

An Introduction to Polymeric Materials

• Founders of Polymer Science
• Classification of polymers (structure and composition)
• Structure property relationships of polymers
• Thermoset and Thermoplastic materials
• Molecular weight distributions
• Workshop style examples

Polymerisation Processes: Step-growth polymerisation

• Principles of step-growth polymerisation
• Important commercial examples
• Predicting molecular weight (Carothers Equation)
• Polyesters: Design and Synthesis
• Condensation polymers: laboratory and manufacturing scale
• Linear vs branched polymers
• Workshop style examples

Polymeric Materials: Synthesis, Structure and Uses

• Covering a range of commercially important polymer technologies
• Includes Synthesis methods, material properties, chemical origin of properties and commercial uses
• Covers polyesters, polyamides, polycarbonates, polysilicones and polyurethanes (including foams)

Polymerisation Processes: Chain-growth polymerisation

• Principles of chain-growth polymerisation
• Important commercial examples
• Chemistry of (random) radical polymerisation
• Advances in polymer synthesis: Controlled and 'living' radical polymerisation processes
• Functional acrylic polymers
• Workshop style examples

Alternative Polymerisation Processes

• Anionic and Cationic polymerisation: Monomer suitability and mechanism
• Zeigler-Natta polymerisation: Mechanism and control
• Ring opening metathesis polymerisation and other examples

Network Polymers and Thermoset Materials

• The design and synthesis of functional polymers
• The use of functional polymers in thermoset materials
• Principles of Complementary Reactivity
• Design of network polymers: Gelation Theory and Polymer Maths
• Workshop style examples

Characterisation of Polymers

• Chromatographic, Thermal and Mechanical characterisation of polymeric materials
• Visco-Elastic behaviour of polymers
• Covers techniques including: Size Exclusion Chromatography, Viscosity measurements, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Analysis (DMTA), Tensile Testing, Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)
• Workshop style examples

Durability of Polymeric Materials

• Exterior durability
• Oxidative degradation processes and mechanisms
• Designing materials for durability