Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Increased production rates, the manufacture of new polymeric materials with existing equipment, and the ability to replace processes with cost-effective and environmentally-friendly versions are key drivers in the polymers industry. Academic research, on the other hand, is primarily focused on the synthesis of new polymers from bio-renewable feedstock, or the development of functional materials with controlled microstructures for high value applications. Common to both industrial and academic interests is the need for fundamental knowledge of polymerization kinetics and mechanisms to guide polymer synthesis conditions and process development efforts. My research fills this considerable knowledge gap by applying specialized pulsed-laser techniques to measure key kinetic rate coefficients not accessible through standard experimentation, capturing that knowledge in detailed mechanistic models formulated to represent polymerizing systems, and undertaking targeted experimental studies at relevant conditions to test and validate the models. The long term objective of my research program is to improve understanding of radical polymerization systems to the point where first-principles modeling is a reliable and robust tool for process design and optimization, reducing the experimentation required to design new polymeric materials. My group's recent efforts have demonstrated that water and other hydrogen bonding solvents (particularly those with a hydroxyl group) greatly influence radical polymerization kinetics. Thus, the planned research over the next five years will measure the impact of solvent choice on copolymer microstructure to enable the process modifications required to produce an equivalent material in aqueous and organic solution. A particular focus is the copolymerization kinetics of hydrophobic and functional hydrophilic monomers, as the resulting materials have uses in water-borne and water-soluble coatings and specialty products used as pigment dispersants and in a range of consumer products. The research will also provide further insight into the role of hydrogen bonding on polymerization kinetics, a subject we continue to systematically investigate to increase the predictive power of mechanistic models and reduce the requirement for experimentation. In addition, the program trains graduate students in expertise important to the Canadian polymer industries, and exposes undergraduate students to practical material development and reaction engineering issues.