Chemical engineering of polymers: Production of flexible, functional materials

Polymers, with their large spatial extent and chemical variety, afford materials scientists the opportunity to be architects at the molecular level. Once the architecture is decided, however, the task of construction moves to the chemical engineer to build the material in a faithful, stable and efficient manner. This involves assembling not only the molecular structure but also the larger scale internal micro- and meso-structure of the material. New processes are continually becoming available to the chemical engineer to accomplish these ends. New catalysts, new macromolecular building blocks, reactive processing, self-assembly, manipulation of phase behavior, applications of strong orienting fields and genetic engineering of materials are among the processing of polymers is the ability to measure product characteristics. Scattering and imaging methods have been the most powerful and the fastest growing techniques giving insight into polymer structure. Chemical engineering is as central as it always has been to leadership in the development and processing of polymers and other soft materials.