This three-year award in support of U.S.-France collaborative research in polymer materials involves Randolph Duran of the University of Florida's Engineering Research Center in Particulate Science and Yves Gnanou of the Ecole Normale Superieure de Physique et de Chimie in Bordeaux, France. The grant will principally support the participation of US graduate students and undergraduates in research activities and experiments in Bordeaux. The objective of the research is the synthesis and characterization of a series of well-defined, amphiphilic star-block copolymers. Among the branched architectures, star polymers present the most elementary means of arranging the sub chains since each star contains only one branch point. Well-defined star polymers represent useful models for the study of the relation between their molecular structures and the microscopic properties in solution or in solid state.
The US investigator brings to this collaboration expertise on characterization of polymers. This is complemented by French expertise in polymer synthesis. The collaboration takes advantage of facilities in Florida and at the Advanced Photon Source Synchrotron.
