The 14th International Workshop on Polymer Reaction Engineering (PRE2023) took place in Potsdam from 5 to 8 September 2023 at Fraunhofer-IAP in Potsdam, Germany. Usually held every three years, this international workshop is a prestigious platform for experts to share their latest findings, as well as a knowledge pool for young professionals who want to gain a broad foundation or present their own work.

Rising energy costs and the need to base polymer production in future more and more on sustainable raw material feeds impose significant challenges to the polymer industry. Polymer reaction engineering can contribute significantly to match these challenges. Around 150 people from academia and industry participated in this 14th edition which focused on the design and intensification of polymer production processes, conditioned by both customer requirements and new technological developments such as new catalysts, process analytical technologies and novel modelling and simulation tools; additionally, current topics in the synthesis of plastics based on monomers from sustainable sources, polymer recycling and possible recycling of polymeric materials to conserve resources where part of the program.

NanoPAT participated at the event to show some of the results of our work with polymers and PATs: particle size monitoring techniques can be very useful in the emulsion polymerization field, due to the effect that the particle size and the particle size distribution has in the final applications of the latex. Our colleagues from UPV/POLYMAT Usue Olatz Aspiazu Iturbe, Shaghayegh Hamzehlou and Joserra Leiza attended the event. Usue presented a poster and gave a flash talk about the potentiality of Turbidity Spectroscopy (TUS) to online monitor the particle size of the polyacrylate latexes. The poster is related to this recent publication (DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.08.197) from UPV, POLYMAT and IRIS on how wavelength exponent based calibration curves can be successfully used to retrieve the particle size during the polymerization process using Turbidity Spectroscopy (TUS).
Why did the project have an active role in this event?: