Phase Behavior, Chain Packing, and Local Dynamics in Solid Polyolefin Blends

该项目旨在了解聚合物组成，链结构和单个链动力学在确定局部结构中的作用，其长度尺度小于固态聚烯烃共混物的回转半径。 固态核磁共振将是主要的工具，用来询问在选定的共混物的形态和动力学。 磁共振非常适合选择性地探测大分子的结构和动力学，即使是在没有任何特殊同位素标记方案的情况下制备的聚合物共混物。这项工作的结果将是一个详细的了解固体聚烯烃共混物在链水平，这将导致新的共混物组合物的基础上设计的链结构，因此，新的和工业上有用的材料的结构/相容性的关系。研究生和本科研究生将应用最新的仪器和聚合物合成技术，在这一领域的强大的工业关系将提供充分的合作机会。 反过来，他们将与北卡罗来纳州州立大学地区的中学生分享这些经验，作为一个项目的一部分，开发计划，让这些学生接触到聚合物科学的令人兴奋的方面。聚合物是一类由非常大的分子制成的材料，在许多重要的商业领域，从食品包装到航空航天复合材料，都有应用。在这类材料中有饱和烃聚合物或聚烯烃，它们是经济上最重要的工业聚合物。在设计新的聚合物材料的“科学”培训的研究生将在工业和学术部门的就业机会非常有竞争力。

This project aims to understand the role of polymer composition, chain architecture, and individual chain dynamics in determining local structure at length scales less than the radius of gyration in the solid state for polyolefin blends. Solid state nuclear magnetic resonance will be the chief tool used to interrogate the morphology and dynamics in selected blends. Magnetic resonance is ideally suited for selectively probing structure and dynamics in macromolecules, even for polymer blends prepared without any special isotopic labeling schemes. The result of this work will be a detailed understanding of structure/miscibility relationships for solid polyolefin blends at the chain level, which should lead to novel blend compositions based on designed chain architectures, and therefore, new and industrially useful materials. Graduate and undergraduate research students will apply the latest instrumentation and polymer synthesis techniques, and strong industrial relationships in this area will afford ample opportunity for working collaborations. In turn, they will share these experiences with middle school students in the North Carolina State University area as part of a project to develop programs for exposing these students to exciting aspects of polymer science.Polymers are a class of materials made from extremely large molecules that find applications in many important commercial areas ranging from food packaging to aerospace composites. Within this class of materials are the saturated hydrocarbon polymers, or polyolefins, which are among the most economically important industrial polymers. The research students trained in the "science" of designing new polymeric materials will be very competitive for employment opportunities in both the industrial and academic sectors.