Willkommen in der Polymerchemie

The polymer chemistry is part of the Institute for Chemical Technology and Polymer Chemistry and consists of two research groups. The research in the division "polymeric materials" is focused on the characterization and on the optimization of application properties of polymeric materials. The division "preparative macromoleculare chemistry" works on the improvement of polymerization and synthesis of polymers. The group "macromoleculare architectures works on highly functionalized materials and modern synthesis approaches. The expertise of all groups is used to develop new polymeric materials by use of funktionalized polymers with known topology or self organising supramolecular structures.

Research groups

Prof. Wilhelm Polymeric Materials	Prof. Theato Preparative Macromolecular Chemistry
The resarch interests focus on method development in rheology, specifically "FT-Rheology" and the rheological characterization of polymeric materials. One special topic in this field is the influence of different topologies on the rheological characteristics of polymers. Therefore, Anionic synthesis of defined topologies is a fundament of our scientific work. Other areas of interest are low-field nmr and novel detection systems for size exclusion chromatographie.	The research interests of the group include functional polymer synthesis, surface chemistry, nanomaterials and materials science. Synthetically all modern polymerization techniques (e.g. ATRP, NMP, RAFT polymerization, ROMP, ROP, ADMET) and post-polymerization modification techniques on the basis of click chemistry are employed. Further research topics include the field of batteries, electrospun fibers, AAO templates, thin films, hydrogels, macromolecular architectures and responsive polymer systems.

Prof. Barner-Kowollik Macromolecular Architectures
Current research in the Macroarc team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT - minor node) and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT - main node) is situated at the interface of organic, polymer and biochemistry and focuses on a wide range of polymer-related research fields such as the synthesis of complex macromolecular architectures with highly-defined functionality and composition via advanced polymerization protocols, synthesis via polymer conjugation techniques and macromolecular transformations at ambient temperature with a particular emphasis on light driven photochemical transformations, fundamental investigations into polymerization mechanisms and kinetics as well as high resolution imaging and characterization of macromolecular chain structures. Applications include high definition surface modification and nano-engineering for targeted cell attachment, sequence defined polymers, biomimetic materials ranging from adhesives to routes to synthetic proteins, surface and solution bonding/debonding on demand systems, supramolecular chemistry with polymer strands, polymer-based catalysis as well as advanced biosubstrate functionalization.