Manufacturing and Novel Applications of Multilayer Polymer Films

Deepak Langhe is a Director at PolymerPlus LLC where he serves as the Technology Director and primary investigator on micro- and nano-layer based film technologies. Deepak received his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University's Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering under Professors Eric Baer and Anne Hiltner. He has more than 20 publications and 2 issued patents related to innovative applications of multilayer film systems. Some of his current research activities include multilayered films for energy storage applications, fabrication of non-woven fibers for filtration applications, and multilayer film based shape memory materials. He is also involved with translation of these and other related novel multilayer film related technologies to commercial marketplace. His other research interests are coextrusion processing, multilayer film applications in consumer goods, green and biodegradable polymers in coextruded structures, structure-property relationships and confinement effects in nanolayered films as well as thermoplastic materials.Michael Ponting is a co-founder and President of PolymerPlus LLC where he serves as the lead scientist and primary investigator on several microlayered materials technology development programs. A Ph.D. graduate of the Case Western Reserve University Department of Chemical Engineering under Professors Eric Baer, Michael has more than 20 peer reviewed publications and 3 issued patents related to the production and structure property relationships of multilayered polymer film systems. His current research efforts are focused on the development and commercial translation of high value added micro- and nanolayered polymer technologies including nanolayered gradient refractive index optics, nanolayerd dielectric energy storage films and coextrude non-woven nanofibrous materials for filtration applications. Additional research interests include: development of processing technologies for micro- and nanolayered polymer systems, multilayer coextrusion system and die design, polymer structure-property relationships, nanoscale induced polymer optical properties, layer confinement effects for improved gas barrier, and manufacturing scale-up and metrology of nanolayered polymer films.