A physical model for the longitudinal polarizabilities of polymer chains

The aim of this work is to provide a physical model to relate the polarizability per unit cell of oligomers to that of their corresponding infinite polymer chains. For this we propose an extrapolation method for the polarizability per unit cell of oligomers by fitting them to a physical model describing the dielectric properties of polymer chains. This physical model is based on the concept of a dielectric needle in which we assume a polymer chain to be well described by a cylindrically shaped nonconducting rod with a radius much smaller than its length. With this model we study in which way the polarizability per unit cell approaches the limit of the infinite chain. We show that within this model the macroscopic contribution of the induced electric field to the macroscopic electric field vanishes in the limit of an infinite polymer chain, i.e., there is no macroscopic screening. The macroscopic electric field becomes equal to the external electric field in this limit. We show that this identification leads to a relation between the polarizability per unit cell and the electric susceptibility of the infinite polymer chain. We test our dielectric needle model on the polarizability per unit cell of oligomers of the hydrogen chain and polyacetylene obtained earlier using time-dependent current-density-functional theory in the adiabatic local-density approximation and with the Vignale-Kohn functional. We also perform calculations using the same theory on truly infinite polymer chains by employing periodic boundary conditions. We show that by extrapolating the oligomer results according to our dielectric needle model we get good agreement with our results from calculations on the corresponding infinite polymer chains.     

Orientational ordering of polymer chains near the surface and asymmetry of the statistical segment of macromolecules

The parameter of the orientational order of polymer chain fragments near the substrate (film) surface in relation to the degree of asymmetry of the statistical segment of the macromolecule was discussed in terms of the model of adsorption of rigid cylinders on the substrate surface. The theoretical parameters of the orientational order were analyzed and compared with the experimental data for films of polysaccharides, sulfated phenyl-containing polymers, and polytrimethylsilylpropynes.     

A new approach to the determination of the statistical segment length of wormlike polymers

The Stockmayer-Fixman-Burchard (SFB) and the Dondos-Benoit (DB) equations have been applied to determine the unperturbed dimensions parameterK of wormlike polymers. An empirical relation between the Flory's constant and the Mark-Houwink-Sakurada (MHS) exponenta has been proposed. The values found by this equation are lower than the value 2.5×10²³ used in the case of flexible polymers and this deviation is attributed to the influence of the draining effect. From theK value and the so calculated value of , we calculate the Kuhn statistical segment length of wormlike polymers. The obtained — for a great number of wormlike polymers — statistical segment lengths are almost the same as these calculated by the Yamakawa-Fujii and the Bohdanecky methods. The molecular mass regions in which the SFB, the DB, and the MHS equations are valid are explored. A criterion for the distinction between flexible and wormlike polymers is proposed based on the way of approach to the power law.     

Separating drugs from nondrugs: a statistical approach using atom pair distributions

A computational approach to quantify the druglike character of chemical compounds is presented. For this purpose, the distribution of atom types and their pair-wise combinations in known drugs and nondrugs was examined. Statistical analysis of the occurrence probabilities was used to derive a drug-likeliness score on a logarithmic scale. "Typical" pharmaceutical agents exhibit scores greater than 0.3, while for ordinary substances, values below 0 are expected. Although any kind of fitting or error minimization scheme is absent in this method, confirmed drugs are predicted with an accuracy of at least 71%. Many falsely predicted nondrugs were found to closely resemble actual drugs or to contain unsuitable substitution patterns that can easily be ruled out by applying medicinal knowledge. As the outlined method is computationally inexpensive, this drug-likeliness score can therefore be used as a filter for the in silico screening of large substance databases.     

Modified interfacial statistical associating fluid theory: application to tethered polymer chains

Modified interfacial statistical associating fluid theory density functional theory is extended to tethered polymer chains in the absence or presence of free polymer chains. The structures of the "dry" and "wet" polymer brushes have been calculated and compared with simulation results available in the literature. The comparisons show that the theory accurately predicts the structure of the tethered polymer brush. The average brush heights calculated from the theory agree with well-established scaling theories for tethered polymers. However, these scaling theories cannot predict the detailed structure, accurately. The effects of the segment-segment interactions of the tethered polymer and the free polymer have been effectively captured by the theory.     

Transferability in the natural linear-scaled coupled-cluster effective Hamiltonian approach: Applications to dynamic polarizabilities and dispersion coefficients

A natural linear-scaled coupled-cluster (CC) method has been developed to calculate the response properties of large molecules, for example, dynamic polarizabilities and dispersion coefficients. The method is based on the transferability of the CC effective Hamiltonian from the equation-of-motion (EOM)-CC methods, subject to its representation in terms of highly transferable natural localized molecular orbitals. This transferability allows the interactions among regions in a molecule to be classified according to their important inter-region excitations and de-excitations. Dynamic polarizabilities determined in this way provide insight into calculating the excited states of large molecules using localized orbital concepts. Dispersion coefficients for the interactions within large molecules can be similarly determined. These could be useful in constructing corrective long-range potentials. Applications to alkanes, tryptophan, and polyglycine are presented. For those cases which are possible, conventional results can be reproduced. Dynamic polarizabilities of tryptophan indicate that the first excited state is localized to the indole group, while the second is localized to the carboxyl group.     

Fine-tuning of polymer photovoltaic properties by the length of alkyl side chains

This paper reports the synthesis and characteristics of a series of alkyl-substituted planar polymers. The physical properties are carefully tuned to optimize their photovoltaic performance. Depending on the length of soluble alkyl side chains which modify the structural order and orientation substantially in polymer backbones, the device performance can be improved significantly. The tuning of HOMO energy levels optimized polymers’ spectral coverage of absorption and their hole mobility, as well as miscibility with fullerene; all these efforts enhanced polymer solar cell performances. The shortcircuit current, Jsc for polymer solar cells was increased by adjusting polymer chain packing ability. It was found that films with well distributed polymer/fullerene interpenetrating network exhibit improved solar cell conversion efficiency. Enhanced efficiency up to 5.8% has been demonstrated. The results provide important insights about the roles of flexile chains in structure-property relationship for the design of new polymers to be used in high efficient solar cells.     

Treating the polyelectrolytes as polymers with a draining effect. I. The statistical segment length

The statistical segment length of polyelectrolytes, A, in aqueous salt solutions is derived from the unperturbed dimensions parameter, K_θ, that is obtained from the graphical representations based on the Stockmayer–Fixman–Burchard and Dondos–Benoît equations. In order to obtain A from K_θ we use values of the Flory's parameter, Φ, which are given from an empirical equation established for the polymers presenting a draining effect, such as the wormlike polymers. With these values of Φ, the obtained values of A for different polyelectrolytes in aqueous salt solutions of different ionic strength are found very close to the values obtained from other more complicated methods. This result shows that the polyelectrolytes can be considered as polymers presenting a draining effect. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 4225–4229, 2004     

Lattice model of heterogeneous polymer chains in the liquid-crystalline state, 1 statistical properties

A heterogeneous lattice model for main-chain liquid-crystalline polymers is proposed. Phase transition parameters and statistical properties of the chain in the ordered phase are treated in the framework of a mean-field approximation. The order parameters for the mesogen and the spacer bonds, the chain shape anisotropy and the fraction of stretched isomers are obtained. Dependence of the Curie point on the spacer length and flexibility is considered. The “odd-even” effect is shown to increase drastically with the spacer flexibility. A strong dependence of the conformation changes in the ordered state on the spacer properties is obtained.     

A statistical approach to characterize the viscoelastic creep compliances of a vinyl ester polymer

The objective of this study was to develop a model to predict the viscoelastic material functions of a vinyl ester (VE) polymer with variations in its experimentally obtained material properties under combined isothermal and mechanical loading. Short-term tensile creep experiments were conducted at three temperatures below the glass transition temperature of the VE polymer, with 10 replicates for each test configuration. The measured creep strain versus time responses were used to determine the creep compliances using the generalized viscoelastic constitutive equation with a Prony series representation. The variation in the creep compliances of a VE polymer was described by formulating the probability density functions (PDFs) and the corresponding cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) of the creep compliances using a two-parameter Weibull distribution. Both Weibull scale and shape parameters of the creep compliance distributions were shown to be time and temperature dependent. Two-dimensional quadratic Lagrange interpolation functions were used to characterize the Weibull parameters to obtain the PDFs and, subsequently, the CDFs of the creep compliances for the complete design temperature range during steady state creep. At each test temperature, creep compliance curves were obtained for constant CDF values and compared with the experimental data. The predicted creep compliances of the selected VE polymer in the design space are in good agreement with the experimental data for all three test temperatures.     

Controlled strain on a double-templated textured polymer film: a new approach to patterned surfaces with bravais lattices and chains

A double template-assisted fabrication method for making surface patterns with tunable lattice geometries on a polymer surface is reported. This technique is based on a locally nonuniform strain produced in a double-templated polymer film that has a strong modulation in thickness. It can produce all 2D primitive Bravais lattices as well as chains on the surface of a polymer. The lattice parameters are controllable with nanoprecision by varying the direction and amount of the applied strain.     

Monomer density profiles for polymer chains in confined geometries: massive field theory approach

Taking into account the well known correspondence between the field theoretical ?(4) O(n)-vector model in the limit n → 0 and the behavior of long flexible polymer chains in a good solvent, the universal density-force relation is analyzed and the corresponding universal amplitude ratio B(real) is obtained using the massive field theory approach in fixed space dimensions d < 4. The monomer density profiles of ideal chains and real polymer chains with excluded volume interaction in a good solvent between two parallel repulsive walls, one repulsive and one inert wall, are obtained in the framework of the massive field theory approach up to one-loop order. Besides, the monomer density profiles for the dilute polymer solution confined in semi-infinite space containing mesoscopic spherical particle of big radius are calculated. The obtained results are in qualitative agreement with previous theoretical investigations and with the results of Monte Carlo simulations.     

Synthesis of a new polymer surface bearing grafted azo polymer chains

Azobenzene, a photosensitive chromophore that undergoes photoinduced and thermal cis–trans isomerization, can be applied in a nonlinear optical field. {4′‐[(Hydroxy)ethyl]amino}‐4‐nitroazobenzene (disperse red 1) corresponds to one of these azo compounds, which can be grafted to a polymer chain as a part of the main chain, as a dangling group, or onto the polymer surface. In the last case, disperse red 1 is transformed into an acrylic monomer and then grafted onto a polypropylene surface modified with a cold carbon dioxide‐plasma treatment. A method is proposed for quantifying the radicals formed during the plasma treatment and, consequently, for optimizing the grafting reaction. The best conditions (the nature of the solvent, temperature, monomer concentration, and duration) are given. Both IR and Raman spectroscopies were used as efficient techniques for grafting characterization. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 39: 3052–3061, 2001     

Influence of bifurcation position and length of side chains on the structure of isoindigo-based conjugated polymer thin films

We chose a series of isoindigo-based conjugated polymer(ⅡDDT,ⅡDDT-C3 and ⅡDDT-C4) with different length of side chains and bifurcation positions to investigate the relationship between the degree of alignment and the length of side chains and bifurcation positions.We found that the dichroic ratio was increased from 2.37 to 5.23 when the side chain was longer and the bifurcation position was away from the backbone.The π-π stacking distance was decreased from 3.67 A to 3.61 A when the bifurcation position was away from the backbone because of its smaller hindrance and the d-spacing of the(100)was increased from 20.06 A to 25.21 A when the side chain was longer.All the polymers were adopted an edge-on orientation with the backbone paralleled with the long axis of fibers.The weak interaction of side-chain in ⅡDDT-C4 was beneficial for the molecules being rearranged in parallel during the contact line receding and the strong n-n interaction could accelerate the interchain assembly of the parallel molecules through π-π interaction to form aligned fibers.     

General approach to polymer chains confined by interacting boundaries. II. Flow through a cylindrical nano-tube

The Laplace-Green's function methods of Paper I are extended to describe polymers confined in interacting, impenetrable cylindrical geometries, whose treatment is far more challenging than the slit and box geometries considered in Paper I. The general methods are illustrated with calculations (as a function of the polymer-surface interaction) of the free energy of confinement, the radial density profile, and the average of the drag force in the free draining limit, quantities that will be used elsewhere to analyze experiments of Wu and co-workers involving the flow of polymers through nanopores. All these properties are evaluated by numerical inverse Laplace transforms of closed form analytical expressions, a significant savings over the traditional eigenfunction approaches. The example of the confinement free energy for a 3-arm star polymer illustrates the treatment when a closed form expression for the Laplace transform is unavailable.     

Examining the effect of chain length polydispersity on the phase behavior of polymer solutions with the statistical associating fluid theory (Wertheim TPT1) using discrete and continuous distributions

Polymers are naturally polydisperse. Polydispersity may have a large effect on the phase behavior of polymer solutions, in particular, on the liquid-liquid phase equilibria. In this paper, we determine the cloud and shadow curves bounded by lower critical solution temperatures for a number of polymer+solvent systems where the polymer is polydisperse in terms of molecular weight (chain length). The moment method [P. Sollich, P. B. Warren, and M. E. Cates, Adv. Chem. Phys. 116, 265 (2001)] is applied with the SAFT approach to determine cloud and shadow curves with continuous Schulz-Flory distributions. It is seen that chain length polydispersity always enhances the extent of liquid-liquid phase equilibria. The predicted cloud curves obtained for continuous distributions are very similar to those obtained for simple ternary mixtures with the same polydispersity index, while the corresponding shadow curves can be very different depending on the composition of the parent distribution. The ternary phase behavior can be used to provide an understanding of the shape of the cloud and shadow curves. Regions of phase equilibria between three liquid phases are found for ternary systems when the chain length distribution is very asymmetrical; such regions are not observed for Schulz-Flory distributions even in the case of a large degree of polydispersity.     

Bimodal molecular weight distributions of a branched condensation polymer

Gel permeation chromatograms of a hindered-phenolic, branched condensation polymer display pronounced bimodality at high conversion. The true molecular weight distributions, obtained by means of a GPC calibration curve based on narrow-distribution fractions, exhibit corresponding anomalous high-molecular-weight “shoulders.” These results are discussed in terms of preferential aggregation and reaction of the higher-molecular-weight species during the polymerization, promoted by intermolecular hydrogen bonding in the apolar reaction medium.