O.S.P.R.E. 
Dr. Dubé’s Polymer
Reaction Engineering group has been active for over 15 years. Group members
include:
·
Samaneh Khanlari (PhD student)
·
Stéphane Roberge (PhD student)
·
Our facilities includes standard polymerization
laboratory equipment as well as a Waters gel permeation chromatography setup, a
gas chromatograph, a TA Instruments Differential Scanning Calorimeter, an
Atomic Force Microscope, rheometer, a Brookhaven Instruments disc centrifuge
photosedimentometer, a Rheometrics RDA III Dynamic
Mechanical Analyzer and an Instron tester (new model purchased in 2009)
equipped for adhesive property testing. We also have access to many other
polymer characterization tools, e.g., 1H-NMR spectroscopy. A 5L stainless
steel pilot plant reactor and two 1.5 L fully automated LabMax reactors
have been installed and are used in conjunction with a ReactIR 1000 mid-infrared in-line probe for monitoring
of conversion and polymer composition.
There are several areas of interest to us, which
include but are not limited to:
·
polymer reaction
engineering: experimental kinetics, mathematical modelling,
reactor design and process optimization for bulk, solution and emulsion single
and multicomponent polymer systems in batch, semi-batch and continuous modes at
the bench, pilot plant and full plant scales;
·
adhesives and coatings from
emulsion polymers;
·
pilot plant testing of new
sensor technology;
·
parameter estimation;
·
design of experiments.
Following are but a few of the systems of interest to
us:
|
butyl acrylate |
butadiene |
acrylic acid |
|
methyl methacrylate |
a-methyl styrene |
acrylonitrile |
|
vinyl acetate |
methyl acrylate |
methacrylic acid |
|
styrene |
ethyl acrylate |
ethyl hexyl acrylate |
|
and many others |
|
|
We would be happy to discuss
the possibility of pursuing polymer reaction engineering research opportunities
with you and can be reached at (613) 562-5800 ext. 6107 or via e-mail at Marc.Dube@uOttawa.ca.
Current
Polymer Reaction Engineering Research Projects:
Samaneh Khanlari is investigating nano-composite
materials in emulsion polymerization for bioadhesive production
for her Ph.D. studies.
Stéphane Roberge is pursuing his Ph.D. research beginning in September
2011.
Somaieh Salehpour is studying sustainable polymerization methods and
the use of renewable materials for her Ph.D. studies.
Polymer
Reaction Engineering Research Graduates: (in reverse chronological order)
Lili Qie completed her Ph.D. research in 2011. She focused on
cross-linking in emulsion-based pressure sensitive adhesive production.
Gabriela Fonseca completed her Ph.D. thesis in 2010. Her work centered
around the use of mini-emulsion polymerization as a
tool in pressure-sensitive adhesive production.
Liang Li has completed his M.A.Sc. thesis (2009) with a study on the monitoring of
styrene/butadiene emulsion polymerization using in-line ATR-FTIR spectroscopy.
Hong Hua completed his Ph.D. thesis in 2008 and studied the
styrene/butyl acrylate/carboxylic acid system.
Nicolas Brooks completed his M.A.Sc. thesis in 2007. He developed polymerization models using the
Java programming language. His work extends that completed by Marc Laplante to include emulsion polymerizations.
Stéphane Roberge completed his M.A.Sc. thesis program in 2005. Stéphane
studied the in-line monitoring of styrene/butyl acrylate miniemulsion
polymerizations using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. In addition, he examined the
effects of particle size on miniemulsion-based pressure sensitive adhesives.
Marc Laplante is a 2004 graduate from the M.A.Sc.
program under the co-supervision of myself and Dr. David Taylor
(Chem.
Renata Jovanovic graduated in 2004 with a PhD in Chemical
Engineering. She examined structure-property relations of butyl acrylate/vinyl
acetate emulsion-based pressure sensitive adhesives.
Marie-Soleil Giguère graduated in 2003 with an
M.Sc. in Chemistry. Her work involved the use of electro-spray ionization mass
spectrometry for the characterization of polymer molecular weights. Dr. Paul Mayer (Chemistry) and myself
co-supervised Marie-Soleil.
Tony Rivard completed his MASc degree in 2002 and investigated
the kinetics of styrene/butyl acrylate polymerization.
Kim Merrett completed her MASc degree in 2002. She investigated
the use of growth factors in biomedical polymers. Dr. Heather Sheardown
(McMaster, Chem. Eng.) and myself were her co-supervisors.
Xiaodong Duan completed his MASc degree in 2001 and worked on the
development of novel biomaterials. Specifically, he developed new methods to
incorporate dendrimers into polyurethanes to
facilitate the eventual incoporation of PEO into the
polyurethane. He was co-supervised by myself, Dr. May Griffith
from the Dept. of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Dr. Heather Sheardown from McMaster University's Chemical
Engineering Department.
Renata Jovanovic completed her MASc degree in early 2001 and was
studying the use of an in-line infrared sensor to monitor butyl acrylate/vinyl
acetate solution and emulsion polymerizations at the bench and pilot plant
scale. Her work included modeling the
solvent effect of this system and the evaluation of mechanical properties of
the latexes. Renata has submitted some of her work
for publication; please see my publications page for more details.
Éric Poirier, a graduate of the MEng
program in 1999, conducted a review of terpolymerization kinetics.
Chris Badeen completed his MASc degree in 1999 and developed a
mathematical model to simulate multicomponent bulk and solution polymerizations
using the Java programming language. The
model included depropagation kinetics and was used to
predict conversion, copolymer composition and molecular weights for the
MMA/a-MS bulk and solution polymerization. Chris has also developed an interesting Java applet describing emulsion polymerization!
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