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Expert R. Expert has over 30 years R&D experience with major chemical companies in designing new organic polymers, developing and improving polymerization processes, and inventing new polymerization catalysts. His primary focus has been on exploratory research for new product and process development. His major research accomplishments have been in the areas of condensation polymers (polyesters and aromatic polyethers) and ring-opening metathesis polymers (ROMP). He has also conducted research on free radical polymerizations and is familiar with a broad range of synthetic polymers, polymerization catalysts, processes, and kinetics, including for example, living anionic, cationic, addition, olefin, graph, and block polymers. He has been intimately involved in several process optimizations, including pilot plant and plant scaleups, and has routinely used statistical experimental design techniques in his research. His research contributions have resulted in 56 U.S. patents to date, numerous foreign patents, and several publications in major chemical journals. His patents and publications have been cited by others well over 500 times in the chemical literature.

Expert was a lead chemist in the development and commercialization of polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT, also known as polypropylene terephthalate and Corterra ™ polymers) and is one of the top experts on PTT polyester synthesis and chemistry. His research contributions helped define the first world-scale continuous, all-melt PTT plant starting up in 2004. He has extensive experience in pilot scale production of PTT and solid-state polymerizations. His research also identified the mechanisms of thermal and oxidative degradations of PTT, which led to stabilized proprietary compositions. He is also familiar with many aspects of PET and PBT chemistry. His contributions to PTT process chemistry development and numerous patents in this field were recognized by him being chosen the 2003 Texas Inventor of the Year and a co-recipient of the American Chemical Society's Team Innovation Award in 2000. In addition, Expert discovered a new family of polyester copolymers based on cyclobutanediol monomers, which exhibit both good thermal properties (glass transition >100 degrees C) and unusually high, even ultra-high, impact resistance rivaling polycarbonates. This copolyester technology is currently under development at Texas State University, San Marcos.

Expert was lead scientist for several years on developing ring-opening metathesis polymers (ROMP), including discovering several novel in situ catalyst systems for polymerization of dicyclopentadiene (polyDCPD) and new compositions based on cyclohexenenorbornene monomers. His research in this area also resulted in new rubber-modified compositions using various Kraton ™ styrene-butadiene and styrene-isoprene block copolymers to improve impact properties. He is familiar with reaction injection molding (RIM) concepts used for manufacture of polyDCPD. His contributions led to several U.S. patents and publications on ROMP polymers and catalysts.

Expert’s research has dealt extensively with development, modification and improvement of polymerization catalysts, which are a significant portion of his inventions and patents. His research includes catalysts used in polyester synthesis (PET, PBT, PTT), the discovery of several in situ catalysts systems for ring-opening metathesis polymerizations (ROMP), particularly procatalysts based on tungsten, and discovery of several catalysts for aromatic polyether processes. Expert is also familiar with nickel-catalyzed aromatic coupling reactions to form biaryls using aryl chlorides and bromides and published a paper on the mechanism of this reaction. He is also generally familiar with many types of polymerization catalysts, e.g. metallocenes, and homogeneous catalysts used in industrial chemical processes.

Expert was involved for several years in the development of high-performance engineering polymers, particularly the process chemistry to make polyarylethers, such as polyaryletherketones (e.g. PEEK) and polysulfones. These processes involve intimate knowledge of nucleophilic displacement chemistry of aryl chlorides and fluorides. He developed improved catalysts and a novel strategy to prepare highly crystalline polyether ketones via amorphous precursors made from novel ketal-modified monomers (published). His research in this area contributed to many U.S. patents and commercialization. He is also generally familiar with the chemistry and properties of other engineering resins, such as polyarylates, polyethersulfones, and polyetherimides.

Although Expert’s research has focused on polymer chemistry and synthesis, he is very familiar with and understands basic polymer mechanical and physical properties for a wide range of polymers and is familiar with the common test methods. These include intrinsic viscosity, melt flow, Izod impact, modulus, tensile properties, glass transition temperature, differential scanning calorimetry, gravimetric analysis, Instron tests, and the like. He is also familiar with modern analytical techniques used to characterize polymers, monomers, and byproducts, such as gas chromatography (GC), mass spectroscopy (MS), GC-MS, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and paramagnetic shift reagents, high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), infrared spectroscopy, and the like.

Expert's doctorate degree was in the field of physical organic chemistry at one of the premier U.S. universities. His interest in understanding organic and organometallic reaction mechanisms has been one of the underlying themes of his research in polymer chemistry and catalysis. He has investigated, for example, the mechanisms of nickel-catalyzed coupling reactions, the thermal decomposition of polyesters, nucleophilic displacement chemistry, and reaction kinetics for several systems.

Expert is adept at applying molecular modeling computational approaches and techniques to understanding practical chemical problems. Early in his career, he published several papers on orbital mapping techniques for analyzing thermal concerted electrocyclic reactions. More recently, for example, he has used the ChemCAChe suite of semi-empirical molecular orbital programs (e.g. Mopac, AM1, PM3, etc.) to understand the chemistry of polyesters, including the thermodynamics of cyclic dimer formation and the thermal stability of PTT, PET, and PBT.

Expert is currently assisting a company and university who are developing the ultra high impact copolyesters that he invented.