Oxford, April 28, 2014 – The journal Polymer has announced the winning paper of its annual Feng Xinde Polymer Prize. The prize, which is sponsored by Elsevier and organized by the journal Polymer and its Asian Editor for China, Professor Charles C. Han, awards the best paper by Chinese authors published in the journal in the previous year.
The 2013 winning paper is "Unified description of transportation of polymer chains with different topologies through a small cylindrical pore" by Professor Chi Wu from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Dr Lianwei Li from the University of Science and Technology of China.
"On behalf of the journal and Elsevier, we congratulate the winners Professor Chi Wu and Dr Lianwei Li. I would also like to express our thanks to Professor Charles Han for establishing and successfully organizing the running of the Prize, together with our Associate Editors and Editorial Board members from China," commented Dr Rumen Duhlev, Senior Publisher of the polymer journals at Elsevier. "The Feng Xinde Prize has become an important recognition for the Chinese polymer community and a stimulus for particularly good papers from China to be submitted to Polymer."
The research for the winning article began with a study of linear polymer chains, where the team was able to confirm for the first time that the coil-to-stretch transition under an elongation flow field is a first-order transition and that the critical (minimum) flow rate for a linear chain to pass through a cylindrical pore is independent of the chain length. Their results demonstrated that the critical flow rate decreases as the diameter of the pore increases. Further research using star-shaped chains with different arm numbers and lengths demonstrated how the critical flow rate varies with the number of arms on the star chain.
Beyond characterizing flow rates, the researchers were also able to separate polymer chains by their topologies, rather than by their size, paving the way for analytical instruments capable of separating and characterizing polymer chains with different shapes.
The Prize has been conferred annually since 2006 and was named in honor of Dr. Feng Xinde who contributed significantly to the creation and development of modern polymer chemistry in China. In the late 1940s, Dr Xinde became the first professor in the country to offer a course on polymer chemistry, and he also supported the development of polymer science through the organization of meetings and symposia involving both Chinese and foreign scientists.
The Prize comprises a certificate and a medal for the authors of the winning paper as well as a US$1,000 cash award. The authors of the seven other nominated papers also receive a nomination certificate and medal.
The prize-giving ceremony will take place during the 11th International Symposium on Polymer Physics in Nanjing, China, 8-12 June 2014.
Notes for editors
This winning article is "Unified description of transportation of polymer chains with different topologies through a small cylindrical pore" by Chi Wu and Lianwei Li. It appears in Polymer Volume 55, Issue 5, Pages 463-1465 published by Elsevier. A pdf of the article is available for free on: MaterialsToday.com, or via ScienceDirect.
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The International Journal for the Science and Technology of Polymers Polymer publishes original research from all areas of polymer science and technology with emphasis on molecular or meso-scale interpretation of data. Polymer belongs to the first quartile of journals in the ISI JCR subject category Polymer Science.
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