Chemistry International
Vol. 22, No. 5
September 2000
New
Project
Structure and Properties of Cyclic Olefin Copolymers
Modification of general purpose polyolefin materials to enhance their
performance characteristics to the level of engineering plastics is
currently a hot topic of industrial as well as academic research. Co-polymerization
of ethylene with cyclic olefin monomers produces high-Tg, optically
clear, low-shrinkage, low-moisture-absorption, and low-birefringence
materials.
Such materials are currently being produced by Mitsui Petrochemical,
Hoechst Celanese, Japan Synthetic Rubber, and Nippon Zeon Co., and they
are being used as packaging materials, plastic lenses, and new substrates
for compact discs and other optical storage media. Processing of cyclic
olefin copolymers is rather difficult, and the relationship between
their rheological properties and their chemical structure needs to be
well established. Incorporation of polar monomers such as acrylates
during copolymerization is sometimes employed to improve the adhesion
properties. Surface characteristics exhibited with the inclusion of
polar monomers also need to be analyzed.
IUPAC has approved a project to evaluate structureproperty relationships
of recently commercialized cyclic olefin copolymers by means of structure
analysis, rheological measurement, surface characterization, and property
estimation. This project is being coordinated by Prof. Sung Chul Kim,
a Titular Member of IUPACs Commission on Polymer Characterization
and Properties (IV.2), with participation of other members of the Commission.
Comments from the chemistry and polymer community are welcome and should
be addressed to the project coordinator, Prof. Sung Chul Kim, Department
of Chemical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,
373-1 Kusongdong, Yusongku, Taejon 305-701, Korea; Tel.: 82 42 869 3914;
Fax: 82 42 869 3910; E-mail: kimsc@
mail.kaist.ac.kr. See http://www.iupac.org/divisions/current_
projects/2000/990391_400_00.html for project description and update.