Structural Chemistry & Crystallography Communication

Crystal structures of polymers: Will PDF paves the way to greater understanding?

International Conference on Applied Crystallography
October 16-17, 2017 | Chicago, USA

Bernd Hinrichsen, Maxwell W Terban and Robert E Dinnebier

Ludwigshafen, Germany
Columbia University, USA
Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Germany

ScientificTracks Abstracts: Struct Chem Crystallogr Commun

DOI: 10.21767/2470-9905-C1-002

Abstract

Industrial polymers (plastics) are a fundamental part of modern society. The global production of polymers has been growing steadily from the tentative beginnings in the 1940s to 322 million tons in 2015. This immense and ubiquitous use of polymers has led to dramatic pollution issues and legislation curtailing use of environmentally detrimental polymers. Surprisingly little is known about the solid-state structure of these megaton products. Nuclear magnetic resonance studies elucidate the molecular structure in a liquid solution, transmission electron microscopy gives an inkling into the solid-state microstructure; however the chemistry involved in polymeric structures are only well characterized for a few examples by X-ray diffraction studies. Often these are performed on idealized samples, not necessarily representative of the real-life material. We will be presenting works that have been carried out and illustrate the potential which the PDF method brings to polymer research with special focus on challenging subjects such as biodegradation.

Biography

Bernd Hinrichsen has his scientific foundation in crystallography, having attained his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research under the supervision of Robert E. Dinnebier. He spent some time at Bruker AXS as an Application Scientist for powder X-ray diffraction before taking over the responsibility of the powder X-ray diffraction lab at the main research site of BASF in Ludwigshafen, Germany. He is currently responsible for PXRD, Solid-State, NMR, TEM and SEM labs.