CRC Press Conformations: Connecting the Chemical Structures and Material Behaviors of Polymers

Among the materials found in Nature’s many diverse living organisms or produced by human industry, those made from polymers are dominant. In Nature, they are not only dominant, but they are, as well, uniquely necessary to life. Conformations: Connecting the Chemical Structures and Material Behaviors of Polymers explores how the detailed chemical structures of polymers can be characterized, how their microstructural-dependent conformational preferences can be evaluated, and how these conformational preferences can be connected to the behaviors and properties of their materials. The authors examine the connections between the microstructures of polymers and the rich variety of physical properties they evidence. Detailed polymer architectures, including the molecular bonding and geometries of backbone and side-chain groups, monomer stereo- and regiosequences, comonomer sequences, and branching, are explicitly considered in the analysis of the conformational characteristics of polymers. This valuable reference provides practicing materials engineers as well as polymer and materials science students a means of understanding the differences in behaviors and properties of materials made from chemically distinct polymers. This knowledge can assist the reader design polymers with chemical structures that lead to their desired material behaviors and properties. About the Author Alan Tonelli, born in Chicago in 1942, received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kansas, in 1964 and a PhD in Polymer Chemistry from Stanford in 1968, where he was associated with the late “Father of Polymer Science” and Nobelist Professor Paul J. Flory. He was a member of the Polymer Chemistry Research Department at AT&T-BELL Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ for 23 years. In 1991, he joined the Textile Engineering, Chemistry, & Science Department and the Fiber & Polymer Science Program in the College of Textiles at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he is currently the INVISTA Prof. of Fiber & Polymer Chemistry. Professor Tonelli’s research interests include the conformations, configurations, and structures of synthetic and biological polymers, their determination by NMR, and establishing their effects on the physical properties of polymer materials. More recently, the formation, study, and use of inclusion complexes formed with polymers and small molecule guests, such as urea and cyclodextrins, to nanostructure and safely deliver biologically active molecules to polymer materials have been the focus of his research. Jialong Shen, born in Hangzhou, China, in 1987, received a PhD in Fiber and Polymer Science from North Carolina State University, North Carolina, United States, in 2017. His research interests include the molecular basis of polymer glass transitions, host-guest supramolecular chemistry, and the applications of bio-macromolecules such as carbohydrate polymers and enzymes. He is currently a postdoctoral research scholar in the Textile Engineering, Chemistry, & Science Department at North Carolina State University.