Speaker Travel Support for "Polymers and Liquid Crystals" ACS Symposium; Boston, MA; August 19-23,2007

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal requests $3000 from the NSF for speaker travel assistance for a POLY Division symposium titled "Polymers and Liquid Crystals", to be held at the Fall 2007 ACS National Meeting in Boston, MA (Aug. 1923, 2007). The co-organizers of this symposium are the PI (CU Boulder) and Prof. C. Allan Guymon from the University of Iowa. The focus of this symposium is to showcase new research and application directions in the area of liquid crystal (LC)-containing and LC-based polymer systems. Such materials are important because LCs provide the ability to readily control order and anisotropy in polymer materials, and thereby amplify or modify specific properties. In addition, LC components offer the ability to control polymer architecture on the nanometer scale to generate organic nanomaterials with enhanced chemical and/or physical properties. Nanotechnology is an area of great interest to both academia and industry across many disciplines, and it is also currently a national science and technology initiative. The last major ACS POLY symposium on polymers and LCs was held 8 years ago in Fall 1999. The ACS also held a very small symposium in the Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE) Division entitled "Nanostructured Liquid Crystal/Polymeric Materials Applications and Devices" in Fall 2003. Since that time, a number of new research directions in LC polymer systems have emerged. These include new types of materials using new LC phases and polymer architectures; integration of new functional properties into LC polymer materials; and new areas of application, including functional coatings, membranes, catalysts, tissue engineering scaffolds, and micro-actuators. This symposium will highlight these new advances and research directions in this exciting area of polymer chemistry and materials science. Given that polymer chemistry and nanoscience are two important research and education areas within NSF, we believe this symposium would be an ideal candidate for NSF conference support. In terms of intellectual merit, this symposium will provide an interdisciplinary forum for the presentation and discussion of new and previously unpublished results on how polymer chemistry and LC science can be used to achieve functional, ordered polymer materials with relevant and interesting properties. taminants from water. The combination of polymer chemistry with LC technology has already lead to many high-performance ordered polymer materials (e.g., main-chain LC poly(aramid) fibers for high strength and ballistic protection), as well as new display and optical technologies (e.g., polymer-dispersed LC (PDLC) displays). However, the area of polymers and LCs is still at a very early stage of development. Only a handful of classes of LCs (mainly thermotropic LC phases) and polymer architectures (linear, side-chain, cross-linked resins) have been combined and explored. New combinations of LCs and polymer chemistries hold the promise of leading to new types of ordered polymer materials with unprecedented structures and properties. Consequently, it is important for researchers to understand the fundamental behavior and structure of new LC polymer materials, and also see their potential to be used in new application areas beyond structural materials and optical materials. This symposium will act as a vehicle to help keep members of ACS at the forefront of research at the intersection of polymer science and LC technology. In terms of broader impact, this symposium will be a convenient, high profile venue for the presentation of academic and industrial research in the area of LC polymer materials chemistry. The talks, posters, and preprints associated with this symposium will be used to educate not only ACS members but also the general scientific public on the relevance of ordered polymer systems based on LCs This symposium will also serve as an important platform for allowing young scientists (i.e., beginning investigators, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows) to participate and learn about the exciting opportunities at the intersection of polymer chemistry and LC materials.