Polymers, because of their properties and ease of processing into complex shapes are among the most important materials available to us today and the polymer industry makes a major contribution to the UK economy (18 billion per year). An exciting new family of materials are polymer nanocomposites (NCs), in which particles with nanoscale dimensions are dispersed in the polymer. The benefits of NCs derive primarily from the exceptionally large amounts of particle surface area that can be achieved for a small addition of particles (e.g. 5% by weight). Thus they offer dramatic improvement in material performance with significant increases in mechanical and gas barrier properties. The user of such a material therefore gets a more effective product (or one containing less material for the same effectiveness). It is well recognised that the nanoparticle-polymer interface/chemistry is a critical parameter in determining the degree of dispersion of particles in a nanocomposite and that the interfacial properties have a significant influence on nanocomposite performance. In recent times, however it has become apparent that the processing route by which the nanoparticle-polymer mixture is formed into a final product is an equally important aspect of NC manufacture and this is the area on which we will focus in this proposal.The principal aim of the proposed project is therefore to achieve a fundamental understanding of the interactions between material formulation, processing and properties of polymer nanocomposites and to apply this to the development of proof of concept applications which provide generic processing information for industry and academia alike. The work will include statistically designed experimental studies using pilot scale polymer processing equipment and validation trials on industrial scale equipment. Parameters to be studied include extruder shear and temperature profiles, screw design, additives such as anti-oxidant, post extrusion deformation such as biaxial extension and cooling rates. We will characterise the materials in terms of structure, mechanical, thermal and barrier performance in order to link process to structure and structure to performance.We will utilise the combined processing, characterisation and analytical skills and facilities existing in Queen's University Belfast (QUB) and the University of Bradford (UoB), partners who have worked together successfully on large collaborative projects, in the past and currently, and have an excellent national and international track record in polymer processing research.

Soft matter and functional interfaces are ubiquitous! Be it manufactured plastic products (polymers), food (colloids), paint and other decorative coatings (thin films and coatings), contact lenses (hydrogels), shampoo and washing powder (complex mixtures of the above) or biomaterials such as proteins and membranes, soft matter and soft matter surfaces and interfaces touch almost every aspect of human activity and underpin processes and products across all industrial sectors - sectors which account for 17.2% of UK GDP and over 1.1M UK employees (BIS R&D scoreboard 2010 providing statistics for the top 1000 UK R&D spending companies). The importance of the underlying science to UK plc prompted discussions in 2010 with key manufacturing industries in personal care, plastics manufacturing, food manufacturing, functional and performance polymers, coatings and additives sectors which revealed common concerns for the provision of soft matter focussed doctoral training in the UK and drove this community to carry out a detailed "gap analysis" of training provision. The results evidenced a national need for researchers trained with a broad, multidisciplinary experience across all areas of soft matter and functional interfaces (SOFI) science, industry-focussed transferable skills and business awareness alongside a challenging PhD research project. Our 18 industrial partners, who have a combined global work force of 920,000, annual revenues of nearly £200 billion, and span the full SOFI sector, emphasized the importance of a workforce trained to think across the whole range of SOFI science, and not narrowly in, for example, just polymers or colloids. A multidisciplinary knowledge base is vital to address industrial SOFI R&D challenges which invariably address complex, multicomponent formulations. We therefore propose the establishment of a CDT in Soft Matter and Functional Interfaces to fill this gap. The CDT will deliver multidisciplinary core science and enterprise-facing training alongside PhD projects from fundamental blue-skies science to industrially-embedded applied research across the full spectrum of SOFI science. Further evidence of national need comes from a survey of our industrial partners which indicates that these companies have collectively recruited >100 PhD qualified staff over the last 3 years (in a recession) in SOFI-related expertise, and plan to recruit (in the UK) approximately 150 PhD qualified staff members over the next three years. These recruits will enter research, innovation and commercial roles. The annual SOFI CDT cohort of 16 postgraduates could be therefore be recruited 3 times over by our industrial partners alone and this demand is likely to be the tip of a national-need iceberg.

Polymers, because of their properties and ease of processing into complex shapes are among the most important materials available to us today and the polymer industry makes a major contribution to the UK economy (18 billion per year). An exciting new family of materials are polymer nanocomposites (NCs), in which particles with nanoscale dimensions are dispersed in the polymer. The benefits of NCs derive primarily from the exceptionally large amounts of particle surface area that can be achieved for a small addition of particles (e.g. 5% by weight). Thus they offer dramatic improvement in material performance with significant increases in mechanical and gas barrier properties. The user of such a material therefore gets a more effective product (or one containing less material for the same effectiveness). It is well recognised that the nanoparticle-polymer interface/chemistry is a critical parameter in determining the degree of dispersion of particles in a nanocomposite and that the interfacial properties have a significant influence on nanocomposite performance. In recent times, however it has become apparent that the processing route by which the nanoparticle-polymer mixture is formed into a final product is an equally important aspect of NC manufacture and this is the area on which we will focus in this proposal.The principal aim of the proposed project is therefore to achieve a fundamental understanding of the interactions between material formulation, processing and properties of polymer nanocomposites and to apply this to the development of proof of concept applications which provide generic processing information for industry and academia alike. The work will include statistically designed experimental studies using pilot scale polymer processing equipment and validation trials on industrial scale equipment. Parameters to be studied include extruder shear and temperature profiles, screw design, additives such as anti-oxidant, post extrusion deformation such as biaxial extension and cooling rates. We will characterise the materials in terms of structure, mechanical, thermal and barrier performance in order to link process to structure and structure to performance.We will utilise the combined processing, characterisation and analytical skills and facilities existing in Queen's University Belfast (QUB) and the University of Bradford (UoB), partners who have worked together successfully on large collaborative projects, in the past and currently, and have an excellent national and international track record in polymer processing research.

Polymeric web materials are ubiquitous in today's society, with demand set to increase in areas as diverse as plastic electronics and biodegradable or compostable packaging. However, the need for greener technologies, reduced energy usage and lower material usage is clearly at the forefront of all future global manufacturing requirements, and any new products must meet these criteria. Key to determining the properties and performance of a polymer are its surface functionalities. For applications such as packaging, these can include the ability to prevent moisture and air ingress spoiling the products (i.e. barrier properties) or the ease with which labelling information can be printed onto the packaging (printability). These surface functionalities are now being modified through atmospheric pressure plasma processing in a number of industries, particularly using a family of discharges known as dielectric barrier discharges DBD's. In simple terms DBD's consist of a pair of parallel plates separated by a small gap, with at least one plate covered with a dielectric material. The replacement of conventional polymer web processing methods (such as vacuum-based technologies) with DBD plasma processing provides opportunities cleaner, more efficient processing and points the way ahead for many applications. The DBD geometry is ideally suited to web processing and clearly has the potential to make a major impact in this field. For example, polypropylene film coated by DBD technology could replace the current chlorinated polymer products for food packaging. These materials provide a transparent barrier layer, but the use of chlorinated polymers is under pressure from environmental legislation and alternatives are now required. In industry it is important that any web processing is performed uniformly across the polymer without detrimental damage to the surface. This would ideally require a homogenous discharge. However, dielectric barrier discharges usually operate in a filamentary mode, often resulting in non-uniform and small scale inhomogeneous treatment, and partial thermal degradation of the treated films. However, until very recently it has not proved possible to achieve reliable and controllable plasma discharges to deliver the desired surface functionalities over large areas. This is in part due to a lack of understanding of the fundamental processes of the discharge and their relationships to process stability and outcomes, which has limited large-scale system development. This proposal seeks to undertake a detailed investigation of the physics and chemistry of DBD's specifically designed to replicate key elements of an industrial scale reel-to-reel atmospheric plasma processing system. We will concentrate on two polymer substrates; polypropylene and cellulose, which find a range of commercial applications. We will focus only on process gases and precursors likely to deliver specific surface functionalities e.g. printability, barrier, etc. Thus, we will study a series of 'model systems' on the laboratory scale. Key novel elements of these studies will be the first use of molecular beam mass spectrometry to probe the DBD systems in addition to new power supply designs, incorporating user defined pulsed waveforms. These measurements will be complemented, time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy OES and 2-D filtered optical imaging will be used to identify and map out the key emitting species (ionic and neutrals) in the bulk discharge. Combining the results from the surface chemistry and plasma composition studies we shall endeavour to produce a comprehensive picture of the surface chemical routes in this discharge and the interplay between the plasma state and the substrate during the process. The information gained on these 'model systems' will then be transferred to an existing 2m long reel-to-reel industrial scale processing system through reengineering design at our collaborators, Innovia Films Ltd.