Stephanie Camerlynck

As a project leader at Infineum, I expanded upon my knowledge of polymer chemistry. As part of the development team, my position involved the synthesis of new materials which aim to be used as diesel additives for improving cold flow properties. My role also included performance testing, vehicule operability tests, harms tests and plant trials leading to the commercialisation of new additives.

Specialties:
- polymer synthetic chemistry
- analytical techniques for polymer characterisation: infra red, NMR spectroscopy, size exclusion chromatography, gas chromatography

The research project was funded by Unilever R&D, part of the B-vinpol project and was entitled ‘Branched polymer synthesis’. It involved the synthesis of a variety of branched polymers using a wide range of polymerisation techniques including free radical, cationic or atom transfer radical polymerisations. I have developed valuable practical experience in synthetic polymer chemistry as well as in various characterisation techniques (multiple detector size exclusion chromatography, NMR spectroscopy…).

The project involved synthetic organic chemistry, literature search and the use of various characterisation techniques (NMR , Infra Red and Mass spectroscopy). It aimed to produce new dyes for the blu-ray disc technology.

Within the analytical and quality department, at the end of the production line, I had to test the gas bottles before these were sent to customers, using various analytical techniques, including gas chromatography, Infra Red spectroscopy etc.