Polymers and Organic Chemistry (POC-16)

Kostas D. Demadis

doi:10.1515/ci-2016-0639

Article Publicly Available

Polymers and Organic Chemistry (POC-16)

Kostas D. Demadis

Published/Copyright: December 16, 2016

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Author Information

From the journal Chemistry International Volume 38 Issue 6

The 16th International Conference on Polymers and Organic Chemistry (POC-16, http://poc2016.com), endorsed by IUPAC, was held in the seaside town of Hersinossos on the island of Crete, Greece, 13-16 June 2016. The meeting, organized by Prof. Kostas Demadis and the University of Crete, was the latest in the series of biennial POC Conferences, started in Lyon, France in 1983, aimed at discussing, sharing, and disseminating advances at the interface between the fields of polymers and organic chemistry. Following the tradition of the previous meeting in Timişoara, Romania and earlier editions of this series, the conference included exchanges of information, results and advances among scientists working in the areas of polymer synthesis, characterization, and applications, with an eye towards organic chemistry.

The two POC-16 Plenary Speakers, Nikos Hadjichristidis (above) and Maria Vamvakaki (below).

Conference group photo, just before the Gala Dinner.

The program focused on nine topics:

Advances in polymer synthesis
Polymers for separations and environmental protection
Polymers in medicine, biochemistry and agriculture
Novel functional polymers
Polymers for catalysis and energy applications
Biocatalysis and polymers synthesis
Biopolymers and their applications
Functional Metal-Organic Frameworks and Coordination Polymers, synthesis and applications
Polymers in Cultural Heritage

POC-16 attracted nearly 150 participants from 29 countries. There was a strong presence of young researchers, with students making up ~ 40 % of the participants. There were two Plenary Lectures, “Polyhomologation: From organic to polymer chemistry” by Nikos Hadjichristidis (KAUST, Saudia Arabia) and “Photosensitive polymeric materials”, by Maria Vamvakaki (Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, and University of Crete), together with nine invited talks given by Steven Armes (Polymerisation induced self-assembly), Christine Jerome (Polyphosphoesters as a new platform for the design of particulate drug delivery systems), Barbara Fowler (filling in for Judit Puskas, Novel UV-curable rubbers for biomedical applications), Corneliu Davidescu (Chemically modified polymer matrices with applications in environmental protection), Gheorghe Ilia (Modern methods used in synthesis of polyphosphoesters), Spiros Anastasiadis (Structure and dynamics in polymer nanocomposites), Theoni Georgiou (Designing well defined polymeric materials), and Joanna Pietrasik (Polymer brushes: From synthesis, through properties to applications). These were accompanied by 63 oral presentations, in addition to two poster sessions at which 57 communications were presented. The meeting allowed ample time for discussion, both inside and outside the lecture and poster sessions, and greatly benefited from the presence of enthusiastic young researchers.

Many of the presentations from this Conference will be published in a special issue of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

The next POC Conference (POC-17) will be held in 2018 in Montpellier, France and will be organized by Prof. Ghislain David. We anticipate that this will be as successful and enjoyable as POC-16.

Online erschienen: 2016-12-16

Erschienen im Druck: 2016-12-1

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/ci-2016-0639