514 Chemical and Materials Engineering Building 
Tel: (780)492-9018 
Fax: (780)492-2881 
phillip.choi@ualberta.ca

Research Areas: Molecular Modeling of Polymers; Polymer Blend Thermodynamics; Solubility Properties of Surfactants; Urethane Coatings

Dr. Choi’s main research area is physical properties of polymeric materials. One of his research interests is on developing both experimental and molecular simulation methods for studying solubility characteristics of non-ionic surfactants and miscibility of polymer blends in the liquid state. Another major focus of Dr. Choi's research is to study the correlation between the types of polyisocyanates and polyols used in urethane synthesis and the resulting multi-phase morphology. In particular, Dr. Choi has developed a novel experimental technique, based on inverse gas chromatography, to measure the three-dimensional solubility parameters of various non-ionic surfactants. He has also developed molecular modeling strategies, based on molecular mechanics models coupled with molecular dynamics, to compute the parameters of the same systems. In addition, Dr. Choi has applied the molecular mechanics/molecular dynamics techniques to study the molecular morphology as well as to compute the heats of mixing and Flory-Huggins interaction parameters of polyethylene/polypropylene as well as polyethylene blends. Dr. Choi’s current research interests are rheological and mechanical properties of polyethylene blends, melting point depression of semi-crystalline polymer blends and the structure-property relationships of urethane coatings. 

Sample Publications:

L. Zhao and P. Choi, Determination of Solvent Independent Polymer-Polymer Interaction Parameter by an Improved Inverse Gas Chromatographic Approach, Polymer, 42, 1075 (2001). 

P. Choi, Molecular Dynamics Studies of the Thermodynamics of HDPE/Butene-based LLDPE Blends, Polymer, 41, 8741 (2000). 

P. Choi, T. A. Kavassalis and A. Rudin, Measurement of Three-Dimensional Solubility Parameters of Nonyl Phenol Ethoxylates Using Inverse Gas Chromatography, J. Colloid and Inter. Sci., 180, 1 (1996). 

P. Choi, H. Blom, T. A. Kavassalis and A. Rudin, The Immiscibility of Polyethylene and Polypropylene: A Molecular Dynamics Study, Macromolecules, 28, 8247 (1995). 

P. Choi, T. A. Kavassalis and A. Rudin, Estimation of Hansen Solubility Parameters for Hydroxylethyl and Hydroxylpropyl Cellulose through Molecular Simulation, I and EC Research, 33, 3154 (1994). 

T. A. Kavassalis, P. Choi and A. Rudin, The Calculation of 3D Solubility Parameters Using Molecular Models, Molecular Simulation, 11, 243 (1993).