Morphology and mobility of polymeric chains in polymer bushes prepared via controlled polymerization
Claude Bernard University

Roxana-Viorela Ostaci is a PhD student in the POLYFILM Network working at the Claude Bernard University in Lyon, Laboratory of Polymeric Materials and Biomaterials (LMPB) and at Polymers, Properties at Interfaces and Composites Laboratory (L2PIC) at University of South Brittany.

The interdisciplinary nature of her thesis covers the chemistry of creating polymer brushes systems devoted to mobility studies in thin polymer films to the theory, modeling & control of surface properties.

Past Experience

She graduated in “Technology of Polymeric Materials” from “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi, Romania, with a curriculum based on technological, chemical and physical aspects of polymer science. She obtained her Master degree in “Biomaterials” at the same University. In 2003-2004 she received one year Erasmus-Socrates Scholarship at Université de Haute Alsace, Ecole Nationale Superieure de Chimie de Mulhouse. Her project was focused on the properties of PEO-b-PAA bloc-copolymers in water solutions. In 2004-2005 she joined the Textile, Leather & Paper Chemicals Division at Clariant Produkte, Switzerland as a one year trainee in the group of Dr. Jean-Luc Mura. She worked on synthesis and formulations of UV absorbers for polyamide car textiles. Her training period was ended successfully with a production at industrial level of an UV absorber.

Current Project

Polymer brushes have proven to be efficient surface modifiers for tailoring polymer thin film structures. Her research is motivated by the creation of such novel macromolecular dense brush systems by different methods based on Controlled Radical Polymerization, grafting “to” or “from”, click chemistry…in order to study the effect of the architecture of these brushes on the morphology and the mobility of the polymeric chains. Also, the prepared polymer brushes will be the subject of different studies for collaborators within PolyFilm Network.

The interest of this approach is the complete control of all the necessary stages to thin films studies: from the design & development to the analysis of the properties by modulating their macromolecular architectures.