POLYMERS IN DAILY LIFE AND SCIENCE

Shokyoku KANAOKA, Akihito HASHIDZUME, Taka-aki OKAMURA, Fumitoshi KANEKO, and Tadashi INOUE (Faculty of Science)

Contents
   Polymers, both naturally occurring and synthetic, are among the materials most frequently encountered in everyday life; they are a main constituent of our bodies, food, clothes, and houses. Advances in polymer research have contributed to the phenomenal growth of today's high tech age. This course will present an introduction to polymer science and a brief overview of modern polymer technologies. The main objective of this course is to introduce students, who have little or no chemistry background on a college level but wish to acquire some familiarity with polymers, to basic polymer science including polymer syntheses, structures, and properties. The choice of topics and their order of presentation are indicated below.

Lecture Outline
   POLYMER SYNTHESIS (Assoc. Prof. KANAOKA)
   An introduction to the polymer synthesis chemistry, including synthetic methods, polymer reaction, with some demonstrations of advanced and/or ubiquitous polymer materials. The lecture is also concerned with recent advances in polymer synthesis.
   WATER SOLUBLE POLYMERS (Assist. Prof. HASHIDZUME)
   Water soluble polymers have attracted growing interest because water is the most environmentally-benign solvent. This lecture introduces properties and applications of water soluble polymers showing some examples.
   FUNCTIONAL POLYMERS AND BIOPOLYMERS (Assoc. Prof. OKAMURA)
   Various polymers including conventional polymers, engineering plastics, inorganic polymers, and biopolymers are found in our daily life. The lecture introduces the synthesis and the practical use of functional polymers and functions of biopolymers. Regulatory mechanism in the activation of metalloprotein and enzymes will be shown.
   STRUCTURES AND PROPERTIES OF SOLID-STATE POLYMER MATERIAL (Assoc. Prof. KANEKO)
   Polymer compounds exhibit a wide variety of solid-state structures. This lecture introduces the characteristics of polymer solid states and also the experimental methods to obtain their structural information.
   POLYMER RHEOLOGY (Prof. INOUE)
   Rheology is the study of those properties of materials which determine their response to mechanical force. In this lecture, fascinating rheological behavior of polymeric liquids such as the Weissenberg effect and a tubeless siphon will be reviewed.

Grading
   Class participation: 50%; Short papers (5 times): 50%