(654a) Fluid Mechanics Meets Controlled Polymerizations: Theory, Experiments, and Beyond

The precise control over macromolecular chemical composition is a hallmark of biological polymers. The hierarchical nature of biological structures gives rise to a wide variety of material with specific properties and functionalities. The combination of controlled polymerization and flow chemistry is a paradigm shift in macromolecular synthesis, as it has significantly accelerated and simplified the synthesis of biology-like complexity. This technological evolution is enabled by the development of laboratory scale flow chemistry techniques but fluid mechanic describing the flow behavior in this narrow tubular reactor are required to transpose to a flow system the precision previously achieved in batch.

The work presented here introduces a fundamental fluid mechanical framework for the design of flow polymerization on laboratory scale. A mathematical framework is developed and validated by both ¹⁹F NMR and UV-RI GPC experiments. This study provides a clear set of rules for polymerization reactor design enabling the precise control of polymer microstructure, molecular weight, and dispersity compatible with any living polymerization strategy. Additionally, the concept of ‘inverse design’ has been implemented for the synthesis of several high precision materials.