Macromolecular reaction engineering, the chain-of-knowledge approach

Macromolecular Science & Engineering is the paradigm of a multi-disciplinary area in Materials Science. The path from monomer via macromolecules into functional polymer materials and products travels through various disciplines: chemistry, catalysis, thermodynamics, macromolecular reaction engineering, rheology, physics, processing and product design. The successful development of novel and/or improved polymeric materials and products from laboratory into industrial practice requires an integrated approach and profound understanding of the various disciplines met en route, viz. the chain-of-knowledge approach. In the 20th Century there has been a strong chain-of-knowledge between academia and industry, a prime example in this respect was the development of i-PP by Natta c.s. in Italy in close concert with Montecatini. Nowadays the gap between academic research and industrial R&D has widened to such an extent that this chain-of-knowledge is partly broken. The polymer-producing industry is seemingly mature, no new plastics are envisaged anymore, and the focus is on cost reduction and corporate long term R&D is incompatible with short-term shareholder value. The time scale of research projects in academia, typically 3-4 years for a Ph.D., is often incompatible with the time scale of R&D projects in industry. In the current academic domain, macromolecular science and engineering is becoming more and more fragmented and novel results are published in numerous non-overlapping disciplinary journals. The question is: can we repair this broken chain-of-knowledge between academia and the plastics-producing industry or will academic research make a new chain-of-knowledge by establishing a platform for new industrial activities, exploiting the ultimate properties of the macromolecular chain, also beyond the covalent bond, and in novel sophisticated applications