Polymeric materials/polymers chemical engineering contributions

The Macromolecular Secretariat Symposium upon which this book is based had as its objective interdisciplinary discussions of the topic from the points of view of five divisions of the American Chemical Society Cellulose, Paper, and Textile Colloid and Surface Polymer Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering and Rubber Divisions. The international interest in this topic is evident from the fact that contributions were received from 10 countries. 

In the past decades, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has been used extensively to study various aspects of polymer chemistry and engineering. Fig. 1 shows the relationship among polymerization conditions, polymer structure, and the material s physical structure and end uses. Solution, solid state, and imaging NMR techniques contribute to imderstanding the physical and chemical aspects of the route from raw materials to final product. Solution NMR provides information about all aspects of the polymerization reactions and the final structure of the synthesized polymer. This information can be correlated with the material s final properties and provide feedback to control the initial polymerization process so that the fraction of structures responsible for desirable properties can be controlled in a systematic way. 

Research areas where a chemical engineer can expect to make the most contributions are primarily in resist processing. Here, the major engineering considerations often entail basic conservation laws for mass, momentum and energy, polymer physics, thermodynamics, and transport properties in polymeric matrices. An excellent review has been written by Thompson and Bowden (3) to address the issues encountered in individual unit operations. A few of the many topics discussed in their review will be selected here for a more in-depth examination. Hardware parameters such as lens imperfections, source stability, mask quality and dimensions, contamination and mechanical stability do not fall in the scope of the present discussion. This paper will concentrate on events and research challenges require a firm understanding of material... 

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