An important activity in natural science is the discussion of experimental results and the development of theoretical concepts based on experiments. In many cases the scientific community agrees to a common understanding of experimental results after appropriate amount of discussions but in other cases different opinions remain and "scientific schools" will grow. Especially under complex circumstances as they are represented by plasma processes different views might arise and result in controversial debates.
Given this, the journal Plasma Processes and Polymers has started a new series of such debates which is unique so far in the area of plasma polymerization, and are encouraging debate from members of the community.

The topic of the first debate is the macroscopic kinetics of plasma polymerization. If such a macroscopic approach is sustainable it would support the transfer of polymerization processes from one reactor device to another by using simple scaling factors which is of strong interest for any application. Nevertheless one cannot expect from such a debate that finally a full agreement among the colleagues will result, but an idea how far macroscopic kinetics provide reliable results and a direction for further research might be extracted, promising an interesting discussion!

In order to give some background on the subject under debate, the editors of Plasma Processes and Polymers are pleased to offer free access to the following articles:

• Views on Macroscopic Kinetics of Plasma Polymerisation, R. d’Agostino, P. Favia, R. Förch, C. Oehr, M. R. Wertheimer, DOI: 10.1002/ppap.201000040
• Joint Commentary to the Debate, D. Hegemann, D. A. Steele,R. D. Short, DOI: 10.1002/ppap.201000039
• Testing the Hypothesis: Comments on Plasma Polymerisation of Acrylic Acid Revisited, R. D. Short, D. A. Steele, DOI: 10.1002/ppap.200900101
• Reply to: “Testing the Hypothesis: Comments on Plasma Polymerization of Acrylic Acid Revisited”, D. Hegemann, E. Körner, S. Guimond, DOI: 10.1002/ppap.200900170
• A Physicist’s Perspective on “Views on Macroscopic Kinetics of Plasma Polymerisation”, A. von Keudell, J. Benedikt, DOI: 10.1002/ppap.201000011
• A Chemical Engineering Perspective on “Views on Macroscopic Kinetics of Plasma Polymerisation”, K. K. Gleason, DOI: 10.1002/ppap.201000012

Plasma Process. Polym., 2010 ; DOI: 10.1002/ppap.v7:5