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Report from IUPAC-Sponsored Symposium

Polymer Characterization
Polychar World Forum on Polymer Application and Theory,
7-11 January 2002, Denton, Texas, USA

> Back to Calendar

by Michael Hess

This year's Polychar World Forum on Polymer Application and Theory was held 7-11 January 2002 in Denton, Texas, USA. This was the 10th conference in the series on relationships between characterization, synthesis, processing, manufacturing, and properties of polymer systems. The Chancellor of the University of North Texas, Warren Burggren, opened the conference, which featured 48 participants from 19 countries and comprised 8 special speakers, 6 invited speakers, 23 normal speakers, and 28 posters.

The number of participants and speakers at the conference was lower than in previous years because of the particular difficulties in travelling these days. The number of registrations was initially much higher, but because of the aftermath of September 11 and unexpected weather problems, many registered participants could not attend. Therefore, the conference suffered from many unexpected gaps in its time schedule. Despite these problems–which were professionally handled by the experienced local crew of the Department of Materials Science and other supporting departments of the University of North Texas–the conference provided an impressive overview of current developments in polymer science.

The conference presenters included a number of wellknown scientists, but consisted mainly of those who are at the front line of science-diploma-and doctoral students who presented their results as oral presentations or as posters. For many of the young scientists, this conference is the first occasion to present their work in front of a larger international audience.

The day before the official conference starts, there is a tutorial on analytical methods in polymer characterization, which is presented by notable specialists. This event is very useful for advanced and doctoral students to get an overview of the most important techniques available to characterize polymers in theory and application. The areas covered by the conference were:

  • Predictive Methods l Polymerization
  • Polymer Liquid Crystals
  • Mechanical Properties and Performance
  • Dielectrical and Electrical Properties
  • Surface, Interfaces, and Tribology
  • Rheology, Solutions and Processing
  • Characterization and Structure-Property Relations
  • Recycling

Presentations covered a range of subjects, such as Combinatorial Methods for Polymer Science, Alleviation of Environmental Pollution by Converting Polystyrene Waste into Nonionic Surfactants, Processing and Performance of Polymer-Based Shape Memory Alloy Adaptive Composite, and Biobased Polymeric Flocculants for Industrial Effluent Treatment.

In addition, a number of awards and prices were announced at the conference:

  • The Paul Flory Polymer Research Prize was shared by Ronald Koningsveld, Sittard, The Netherlands, and Moshe Narkis, The Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
  • The Prize for the Best Lecture of the Tutorial was awarded to Dirk Schubert, Freudenberg Forschungsdienste, Weinheim, Gemany.
  • The Bruce Hartmann Award (for a young polymer researcher) was given to Sirina Putthanarat, University of Akron.
  • The Carl Klason Award (for the best student paper) went to Ricardo Simoes, University of North Texas, Denton, U. S. A.
  • Diplomas of Distinction (for a student's presentation) went to Frederic Dreux, University of Rouen, France; Kwan Yee Lau, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China; Joanne Yip, Polytechnic University of Hong, China; and Rice University, Houston, U. S. A.

The next World Forum on Polymer Application and Theory (POLYCHAR 11) will be held in Denton, Texas, 7-10 January 2003 with the Short Course on Polymer Characterization on 6 January 2003.

Michael Hess is a professor at the Gerhard-Mercator Universität, in Duisburg, Germany and is chairman of the Subcommittee on Macromolecular Terminology.

> Published in Chem. Int. 24(4), 2002


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