Supervisors: Professor Dave Haddleton, Dr. Pauline Phillips and Dr Annette Christie Syngenta

Objective: The objective of this Analytical Ph.D project is to gain a better understanding of polymer microstructure, how it is possible to characterize specific polymers using the variety of techniques, the value of each of these techniques in exploring the physical and chemical microstructure and novel techniques for the visualization of polymer structure.

Scope: The project may include the use of a variety of techniques to investigate polymers. These include, but are not limited to:

• Matrix Assisted Liquid Desorption Ionization Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-MS-MS)
• Nuclear Magnetic resonance (NMR)
• Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC)

Challenges: The challenges in this project are mainly related to the nature of the samples, their complexity and novelty. This project will include the investigation of, but is not limited to:

• Co-polymers (novel chemistries)
• Graft co-polymers
• Co-polymer mixtures with significantly different monomer chemistries
• Effect of end group chemistry on analysis

Start date: October 2019

This position has now been filled.