High‐Throughput and Combinatorial Methods in Polymer Research: Their Time Has Come

Abstract

During the last decade, combinatorial and high-throughput techniques have revolutionized the way of performing research in biochemistry, genetics and the pharmaceutical industry. The present research and product development in these areas cannot be imagined without the extensive application of a wide range of synthetic parallel procedures and rapid screening techniques. Within the last few years a similar development could be observed in the field of materials research, starting mainly in the area of catalysis. Combinatorial materials research, high-throughput experimentation and automated parallel syntheses open the way to preparing libraries of polymers, blends, and materials, with a systematic variation of all possible parameters. This will help to develop a more detailed understanding of structure/property relationships and may finally lead to a kind of “materials informatics”. High-Throughput Experimentation! Major problems related to all disciplines, however, still have to be solved: Design of experiments, parallel polymerization procedures, rapid characterization of molecular weights, polydispersities, type and degree of functionalization, reliable preparation of thin films and dots from solution, melt and suspension, fast screening of thermal and mechanical properties, parallel investigation of film morphologies, scale up, processing and investigation of adhesive properties, etc. After a first major wave at the end of the 1990s, the area is currently developing at an enormous speed, probably due to the following reasons: (i) There is a real need for a fast and efficient improvement of existing processes and procedures, (ii) cost pressure in all companies has increased significantly in recent years, (iii) numerous new technologies, such as synthesizer robots, fast characterization tools, and new software for data handling, to name just a few, have become available, and (iv) new important topics, such as smart additives, polymer light-emitting diodes, solar cells, and new catalysts, require new research tools. This Special Issue of Macromolecular Rapid Communications (MRC) was triggered by a workshop of the Dutch Polymer Institute in Eindhoven in June 2002, where several university groups working in this field, actively involved industrial researchers, as well as leading equipment and software manufactures discussed in detail the chances and challenges of combinatorial and high-throughput methods in polymer research (cf. Macromol. Rapid Commun. 2002, 23, 643). Most participants, however, regretted the lack of an up-to-date survey of the field's state of the art in the literature. The present Special Issue is intended to meet these needs, to serve as an introduction to and overview of a wide range of problems in polymer science, and to stimulate further discussion. Considering that all contributors to this Special Issue have as their research motto “no bottlenecks”, what could be more important and more appropriate than rapid publication of their research results? A suitable publication platform should thus provide optimized workflows for both authors and editors in order to offer short publication times and – of equal importance – an efficient quality screening to guarantee the publication of top research only. These two issues are of course not only valid for combinatorial but for all research results. Does Macromolecular Rapid Communications meet these standards? High-Throughput Publication! As for the other members of the Macromolecular Journals family, authors have been able to submit their manuscripts to MRC online at the journal's homepage (www.mrc-journal.de) since February 2002. Fast and critical evaluation of the scientific quality of these manuscripts is realized thanks to the fantastic work of lots of independent researchers, acting as referees. The admirable willingness of both authors and referees to meet tight deadlines together with the benefits from modern electronic infrastructure, such as correspondence