THEORETICAL CHEMISTRY OF
POLYMERS
CHE/MSE/TFE 6755/ CHEM 6754
Course coordinator: Dr.
Rigoberto Hernandez (Chem)
Prerequisites: CHEM/CHE/MSE/TFE
6751, CHEM 6422 or consent of instructor
Proposed Catalog Description:
Thermodynamics and microscopic
dynamics of polymers. Fundamental concepts, including scaling concepts,
governing anisotropy of polarizability, phase transitions, morphology, time-dependent
correlations, etc. are discussed.
Course Justification:
1. Learn the foundation of continuum and statistical
mechanics, and specially as it pertains to polymers.
2. Learn the use of scaling laws to describe material
properties near phase transitions
3. Learn the algorithms and theory behind computer models of
polymerization
A characterization of the dynamics
of polymers is generally not discussed within physical chemistry courses as the
material is often reserved for specialists. This course will integrate this discussion with that of the
usual equilibrium models in order to bring in modern perspectives. This will prepare students to address
non-equilibrium properties of polymers. Computer visualization will be used to
represent the morphologies described by the theory and/or observed by
experiment.
Text:
The course can use a combination
of the textbooks: "Introduction to
Modern Statistical Mechanics," by David Chandler (Oxford, New
York, 1982), and "The Theory
of Polymer Dynamics," by Masao Doi and Sam F. Edwards (Oxford, New York, 1986). Book chapters from these books will be referred to below as SM and
TPD, respectively. These will be supplemented with papers from
literature.
Topical Outline
|
Material
to be covered |
Description |
|
Introduction
& Preliminaries |
Motivation
& classical mechanics |
|
SM 3,
Statistical Mechanics |
General
ensembles: fundamentals & thermodynamic connections |
|
SM 5,
Phase Transitions & Morphology |
Ising
systems, mean field & renormalization group theory |
|
TPD 2,
Static Properties of Polymers |
Equilibrium
Models, Excluded Volume |
|
Molecular
Dynamics |
Ab initio
quantum force and semi-empirical force fields |
|
SM 8,
Non-Equilibrium Systems |
Fluctuation-dissipation
theorem, and Langevin equations |
|
TPD 3,
Dissipative Dynamics of Polymers |
Smoluchowski
Equation, etc. |
|
TPD 4, Dynamics
of Dilute Polymers |
Rouse
& Zimm Models, dynamical scaling, calculating observables |
|
TPD 5,
Many Chain Systems |
Scaling
Theory |
|
TPD 6,
Dynamics in Amorphous Systems |
Reptation
& Length Fluctuations |
|
Polymer
Dynamics |
Correlation
Functions & Measurement |
|
Special
Topics |
e.g.,
Reactions, birefringence, DLS, etc. |