9401958 Miller This award is under the International Junior Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellows Program, which enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twelve months of research abroad at research centers of proven excellence. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a six month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Christopher M. Miller of Lehigh University to visit Professor Robert G. Gilbert at the University of Sydney on mechanisms controlling miniemulsion polymerization. The project will apply the knowledge and experimental techniques of the University of Sydney and Lehigh to understand the fundamental science of processes governing polymer formation, and properties of the resulting polymer in miniemulsion systems. The knowledge gained will open the way for design and innovation using the process in the future. The first part of the project will be to build into previously existing models for miniemulsion kinetics the new discoveries that were reported by the Sydney group. Their theories concern the mechanisms for radical entry into polymer particles, detailed predictions of the fate of desorbed monomeric radicals, and a description of the time evolution of particle growth during the polymerization. The outcome of these will will be computer codes whose predictions should be consistent with the extensive data for archetypical miniemulsion polymerizations compiled by the Dr. Miller during the course of his doctoral studies. On of the main goals of this work is to understand the mechanisms governing radical entry into monomer droplets and polymer particles, since these have shown to be different. The second part of the project will be to use the Y radiolysis relaxation facilities available to the Sydney group. ***
