NMR Spectroscopy of Polymers : Innovative Strategies for Complex Macromolecules

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a premiere technique for the studies of polymers. It is widely used for polymer identification, quality control, and reaction monitoring to structure determination, polymer morphology, compatibility, chain conformation, dynamics, diffusion, and imaging. NMR users can be found in academia, industry, government agencies, and independent laboratories worldwide. Because articles on polymer NMR tend to be published in a large number of different journals, it is useful to have a single book that includes review and papers on the latest advances by acknowledged leaders and active researchers in this field. This book satisfies this need.

This book originates from a three-day symposium at the Pacifichem Conference in December 2010, where active practitioners of NMR gathered to provide a lively and highly successful symposium that included 43 talks and 24 posters, representing the state-of-the-art research of polymer NMR in solids, liquids, and imaging. Most of the papers in this book are taken from the lectures given at the Pacifichem meeting. A total of 31 articles are included in this book, covering fundamental and applied research, new methodology development, polymer structure determination, polymer dynamics and diffusion, nanostructures and nanocomposites, supramolecular assemblies, blends, miscibility, and heterogeneity, polymers under confinements and on surfaces, and multidimensional NMR. Thus, this book provides a good representation of what is happening at the forefront of research in polymer NMR and also furnishes timely and authoritative reviews and original papers on the theory and the practice of NMR spectroscopy of polymers.

H. N. Cheng is currently a research chemist at Southern Regional Research Center of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in New Orleans, where he works on projects involving improved utilization of commodity agricultural materials, green chemistry, and polymer reactions. Over the years, his research interests have included NMR spectroscopy, polymer characterization, biocatalysis and enzymatic reactions, functional foods, and pulp & paper technology. He is an ACS and a POLY Fellow and has authored or co-authored 148 papers, 24 patent publications, co-edited 7 books, and organized or co-organized 20 symposia at national meetings since 1997.

Tetsuo Asakura has been Associate Professor and Professor in the Department of Biotechnology of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology since 1981. He was Assistant Professor of Nihon University School of Dentistry at Matsudo in 1980-81 and Visiting Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Florida State University in 1990-91. He has produced approximately 300 publications. His research specialties include structural analysis of polymers using NMR, NMR chemical shift calculation, characterization of silk and transgenic silk, and applications of silk to biomaterials. He received Awards of Polymer Society in Japan and Fiber Society in Japan

Alan D. English is a DuPont Fellow in DuPont Central Research and Development at the Experimental Station in Wilmington, DE. His interests include solid state NMR spectroscopy of polymers and development of polymer structure/property/processing relationships. He is both an APS Fellow and an ACS Fellow and has been the recipient of a number of awards including the ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science and the International Award of the Society of Polymer Science Japan. He is the author of nearly 100 papers/patents/books and has organized or co-organized 15 symposia at national meetings/workshops since 1981. He is also an Associate Editor of Macromolecules.