Ananiy Kohut, postdoctoral research associate, and Ivan Hevus, graduate student, recently spent time at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Kentucky using the High Flux Isotope Reactor.

Both researchers work with Andriy Voronov, assistant professor of coatings and polymeric materials, studying how amphiphilic polymers form structures in water or solvents. At Oak Ridge, they used the neutron beam from the High Flux Isotope Reactor to measure scattering at small angles to study the micelles formed by the polymers, which are too small to detect with more conventional techniques. They used 72 hours of beam time and studied how molecular composition, polymer concentration, solvent type and temperature affected the size and shape of the nano-sized micelles.