Miscible blends of zinc-neutralized sulfonated polystyrene and poly(2,6-dimethyl 1,4-phenylene oxide)

Zinc-neutralized sulfonated polystyrene ionomers (ZnSPS) and poly(2,6-dimethyl 1,4-phenylene oxide) homopolymer (PXE) form miscible blends up to at least 7.8 mol % sulfonation, as measured by thermal and mechanical criteria. The addition of an equal weight of PXE raises the glass transition temperature of ZnSPS by 40–50°C. However, this miscibility is not achieved by eradicating the microdomain structure present in ZnSPS, even though the PXE coils are considerably larger than the spacings between ionic aggregates. Small-angle x-ray scattering indicates that while the average interaggregate spacing is roughly the same in ZnSPS and its 50/50 blend with PXE at a given sulfonation level, the extent of phase separation is reduced upon PXE addition, indicating that more ionic groups are dispersed in the matrix. Factors influencing miscibility in the ZnSPS/PXE materials and related blends are discussed.     

Effects of the conductivity of sulfonated poly(phenylene oxide) lithium by the complexation of poly(ethylene oxide)

In the present paper, the structure and conductivity for the complex of sulfonated poly(phenylene oxide) lithium (SPPOLi) and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEG) were studied. Glass transition temperature change determined by differential scanning calorimeter analysis desmonstrated that the two components had some compatibility. X-ray diffraction showed that PEG could decrease the regularity of SPPOLi to some extent. The compatibility and PEG's effect on the regularity may be due to the interaction between the lithium ions of SPPOLi and the oxygen atoms of PEG. Under polarization by electric field, the bands between lithium ions and sulfonation groups relaxed. Meanwhile, the complexation of oxygen atoms could enhance the dissociation of the polymeric lithium salts. Then lithium ions were transported in the process of alternate complexing and decomplexing. The action between lithium ions and oxygen atoms could explain the improvement on the conductivity of SPPOLi.     

High-pressure calorimetric study of plasticization of poly(methyl methacrylate) by methane,ethylene, and carbon dioxide

Glass transition in the system poly(methyl methacrylate)/compressed gas was studied as a function of the gas pressure p using a high-pressure Tian-Calvet heat flow calorimeter. Measurements were made on PMMA-CH₄-C₂H₄, and ;-CO₂ at pressures to 200 atm. All three gases plasticize the polymer leading to depression of the glass transition temperature T_g. Trends in the T_g depression were the same as those reported for the solubility of these gases in PMMA; the higher the solubility the larger the depression in T_g. CO₂ was found to be the most effective plasticizer producing a depression of about 40°C at a pressure of about 37 atm. In the low-pressure limit, the pressure coefficient of the glass transition temperature (dT_g/dp) was found to be about −0.2°C atm^-1 for PMMA-CH₄, the same as that observed for polystyrene-CH₄. For PMMA-C₂H₄, the pressure coefficient was −0.7°C atm^-1, which is lower than the value of −0.9°C atm^-1 observed for PS-C₂H₄. The pressure coefficient for PMMA-CO₂ was found to be about −1.2°C atm^-1, which is larger than the value of −0.9°C atm^-1 observed for PS-CO₂. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

聚苯醚磺酸锂与聚醋酸乙烯酯共混物的导电性能研究

为改善聚苯醚磺酸锂（SPPOLi）的导电性能，将聚酷酸乙烯酯（PVAc）与之共混，X-射线衍射分析表明，PVAc可降低SPPOLi凝聚结构的有序程度；发现共混后电导率有了较大提高，共混物的电导对温度的依赖关系不符合阿仑尼马斯方程；同时，共混物仍保持了单离子传导性．     

End‐group modification of poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene ether) and in situ synthesis of poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene ether)‐b‐poly(ethylene terephthalate) block copolymer

The preparation of poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene ether)‐b‐poly(ethylene terephthalate) block copolymer was performed by the reaction of the 2‐hydroxyethyl modified poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene ether) (PPE‐EtOH) with poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) by an in situ process, during the synthesis of the polyester. The yield of the reaction of the 2‐hydroxyethyl functionalized PPE‐EtOH with PET was close to 100%. A significant proportion of the PET‐b‐PPE‐EtOH block copolymer was found to have short PET block. Nevertheless, the copolymer structured in the shape of micelles (20 nm diameter) and very small domains with 50–200 nm diameter, whereas unmodified PPE formed much larger domains (1.5 μm) containing copolymer. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46: 3985–3991, 2008     

Modified poly(phenylene oxide) membranes for the separation of carbon dioxide from methane

Two types of poly(phenylene oxide) (PPO) membranes were prepared: one by chemical modification through sulfonation using chlorosulfonic acid and another by physical incorporation with a heteropolyacid (HPA), viz., phosphotungstic acid. These membranes were tested for the separation of CO₂/CH₄ mixtures. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction techniques were used to confirm the modified structure of PPO as well as to understand its interactions with gaseous molecules. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to investigate the membrane morphology. Thermal stability of the modified polymers was assessed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), while the tensile strength was measured to evaluate their mechanical stability. Both chemical and physical modifications did not adversely affect the thermally and mechanical stabilities. Experiments with pure CO₂ and CH₄ gases showed that CO₂ selectivity (27.2) for SPPO increased by a factor of 2.2, while the PPO–HPA membrane exhibited 1.7 times increase in selectivity with a reasonable permeability of 28.2 Barrer. An increase in flux was observed for the binary CO₂/CH₄ mixture permeation with an increasing feed concentration (5–40 mol%) of CO₂. An enhancement in feed pressure from 5 to 40 kg/cm² resulted in reduced CO₂ permeability and selectivity due to the competitive sorption of methane. Both the modified PPO membranes were found to be promising for enrichment of methane despite exhibiting lower permeability values than the pristine PPO membrane.     

Crystallization and melting of cold-crystallized poly(phenylene sulfide)

In this study, we report the melting behavior of poly(phenylene sulfide), PPS, which has been cold-crystallized from the rubbery amorphous state. We find that the crystallization kinetics are faster for cold-crystallized PPS than for melt-crystallized material, due to formation during quenching of a short-range ordered, but noncrystalline, structure. We observe that the endothermic response of cold-crystallized PPS at a large undercooling consists of a low temperature endotherm, followed by an exothermic region, and by the main higher melting endotherm. The lower melting peak temperature of cold-crystallized PPS increases as the crystallization temperature increases, but the main upper melting peak temperature remains almost the same. The size of the exothermic region is strongly related to the degree of undercooling, and must be taken into account in order properly to determine the degree of crystallinity of the material prior to the scan. When the crystallization time is varied, we see a systematic decrease in the size of the main endotherm, and an increase in size of the lower melting endotherm. This suggests that a portion of the main endothermic response is due to reorganization during the scan. Annealing will not only increase the degree of crystallinity but also improve the crystal perfection; therefore the ability of an annealed sample to reorganize decreases as the annealing time increases. However, an additional third melting peak is seen when a cold-crystallized sample is annealed at high temperature for a sufficiently long residence time. The existence of the third melting peak suggests that more than one kind of distribution of crystal perfection may occur when PPS has been cold-crystallized and subsequently annealed.     

Chemical modification of poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) by bromination-alkynylation

The chemical modification of poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) by bromination of the aromatic ring, followed by displacement of bromine with substituted acetylenes, has been investigated. This pathway leads to a series of novel copolymers containing substituted alkynes on the aromatic ring. The degree of bromination and alkynylation, determined by ¹H-NMR, was in the range of 20–85 and 15–80%, respectively. ¹³C-NMR and FT-IR unambiguously elucidated the structure of the alkynylated polymers. Finally, thermal properties and permeation properties of substituted PPO to carbon dioxide, methane, oxygen, and nitrogen are reported. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Synthesis and characterization of poly(2,6-diarylphenylene oxide)s

The oxidative polymerization of 2,6-diphenylphenol that contains substituents (fluoro, chloro, bromo, iodo, cyano, t-butyl, phenoxy, methoxy, phthalimidyl) in the para-positions of the pendant phenyl groups is described. The melting points of the monomers, with some exceptions, correlate with the glass transition temperatures and the melting points of the corresponding polymers. Random copolymers of some of these phenols with 2,6-diphenylphenol have also been prepared and characterized. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Miscibility of blends of poly(2,6-dimethyl 1,4-phenylene oxide) with polystyrene-based ionomers and copolymers

Blends of poly(2,6-dimethyl 1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPhO) with the copolymer poly(styrene-co-methacrylic acid) (PS-MAA) and the ionomer poly(styrene-co-sodium methacrylate) (PS-MAA-Na), up to 10 mol% co-unit content, were investigated by dynamic mechanical thermal measurements. The PPhO/PS-MAA-Na blends are compared with PS/PS-MAA-Na blends. The blends of PPhO with PS-MAA are no longer miscible at 10 mol% acid content; this is attributed to a copolymer effect induced by the reduction of PS-PPhO interactions due to the presence of the MAA group which does not interact favorably with PPhO. The blends of PPhO with the ionomer are already immiscible at the lowest ion content studied (2.4 mol%), but become increasingly so as ion content is increased. Despite favorable PS-PPhO interactions, these blends are only a little more miscible than the PS/PS-MAA-Na blends. This is attributed to a combination of the increasing importance of the ionomer cluster phase (from which the homopolymer chains presumably are excluded) as ion content is increased, and of a copolymer effect between the homopolymers and the unclustered phase of the ionomer. These results are compared with published data indicating that blends of PPhO with another biphasic ionomer, zinc sulfonated polystyrene, are miscible. The contrasting behavior is rationalized in part by the suggestion that the copolymer effect between PPhO and the unclustered phase of the latter ionomer, but not of the former, is absent; this is related to multiplet structure and sizes. The analysis made of the above systems is extended to predict what might be the miscibility behavior between PPhO and other PS-based ionomer and related copolymer systems. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Water‐soluble poly(ethylene oxide)‐block‐poly(p‐phenylene vinylene) copolymer: Synthesis and characterization

Water‐soluble and photoluminescent block copolymers [poly(ethylene oxide)‐block‐poly(p‐phenylene vinylene) (PEO‐b‐PPV)] were synthesized, in two steps, by the addition of α‐halo‐α′‐alkylsulfinyl‐p‐xylene from activated poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) chains in tetrahydrofuran at 25 °C. This copolymerization, which was derived from the Vanderzande poly(p‐phenylene vinylene) (PPV) synthesis, led to partly converted PEO‐b‐PPV block copolymers mixed with unreacted PEO chains. The yield, length, and composition of these added sequences depended on the experimental conditions, namely, the order of reagent addition, the nature of the monomers, and the addition of an extra base. The addition of lithium tert‐butoxide increased the length of the PPV precursor sequence and reduced spontaneous conversion. The conversion into PPV could be achieved in a second step by a thermal treatment. A spectral analysis of the reactive medium and the composition of the resulting polymers revealed new evidence for an anionic mechanism of the copolymerization process under our experimental conditions. Moreover, the photoluminescence yields were strongly dependant on the conjugation length and on the solvent, with a maximum (70%) in tetrahydrofuran and a minimum (<1%) in water. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 4337–4350, 2005     

Characteristic ratio of poly(tetrahydrofurfuryl acrylate) and poly(2-ethylbutyl acrylate)

The synthesis, characteristic ratio C_∞ and glass transition temperature (T_g) of poly(tetrahydrofurfuryl acrylate) (PTHFA) and of poly(2-ethylbutyl acrylate) (P2EBA) are reported. P2EBA has slightly lower flexibility (C_∞ = 9.2) than PTHFA (C_∞ = 8.6), mainly because of the higher bulkiness of its side group and the closer proximity to the main chain. The C_∞ results compared with the corresponding polymethacrylates show an increase in flexibility due to the absence of the α-methyl group. Comparison with poly(methyl acrylate) clearly shows the influence of the bulkiness of the side group on the chain flexibility. The lower T_g of P2EBA than that of PTHFA may be explained by the higher flexibility of the 2-ethylbutyl side group. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 35 : 1589–1592, 1997     

Electrochemical stability and transformations of fluorinated poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide)

Fluorination of poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) leads to narrowing of its window of electrochemical stability in a cathodic range of potentials. It is found this is connected with appearance of both perfluorinated and incompletely fluorinated units in the polymer. The former units are liable to electrochemical reduction (at potentials <−2.0 V) followed by elimination of fluorine anions and the latter react with basic products (generated at potentials <−1.8 V) of electrochemical reduction of the background solution. In the both cases this results in appearance of conjugated multiple bonds in the fluorinated macromolecules. Quantities of these units in fluorinated PPO were determined with a help of direct and indirect electrochemical reductive degradation techniques.     

Fluorine substitutent effects on poly(2,6-diphenylphenylene ether)

A series of fluoro-substituted poly(2,6-diphenylphenylene ether)s (P₃O) with systematically varied structures were prepared. The properties of the polymers change significantly with the variations in the polymer structures. By increasing the number of fluorine substituents on P₃O polymer, the melting points and the tendency to crystallize for these polymers decrease significantly. Random copolymers from fluoro-substituted 2,6-diphenylphenols and 2,6-diphenylphenol were also prepared. The influence of copolymer structure on the transition temperatures and crystallinity of the resulting copolymers is described. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Brønsted acid-base polymer electrolyte membrane based on sulfonated poly(phenylene oxide) and imidazole

The Brønsted acid-base polymer electrolyte membrane was prepared by entrapping imidazole in sulfonated poly(phenylene oxide) at the molar ratio of Im/SPPO = 2:1. The hybrid showed a high thermal stability up to 200 °C and peroxide tolerance. Differential scanning calorimetry shows that glass transition temperature is 232 °C. The conductivity increases with temperature exceeding 10⁻³ S/cm above 120 °C and a high conductivity of 6.9 × 10⁻³ S/cm was obtained at 200 °C under 33% RH conditions.     

Effect of heating and stretching membrane on ionic conductivity of sulfonated poly(phenylene oxide)

With chlorosulfonic acid as sulfonating agent, sulfonated poly(phenylene oxide) (SPPO) was prepared by homogeneous method and SPPO membranes were cast from its solutions in dimethylacetamide. The obtained membrane of SPPO was heat-treated and stretched with different forces by thermal mechanical analyzer under its glass transition temperature. In addition, the effects of stretching and heating on ion conductivity of SPPO were investigated by using Solatron phase analyzer. It was shown that the mechanical stretching of SPPO has great effect on electric properties of SPPO under proper heating treatment, and the highest conductivities achieved were increased about 10 times that of the original membranes and reached 0.0983 S cm⁻¹. The X-ray diffraction indicated that the molecular chains of SPPO were arranged more regularly under constraint during the heat treatment, and the scanning electron microscopy demonstrated that the morphologies of the film surfaces possessed more co-continuous regions and the hydrophilic ionic sulfonic acid groups orientated at stretching direction and connected more regularly, which facilitated the exchange and transfer of hydrated proton among these hydrophilic sulfonic acid groups.     

Miscibility of poly(ethylene terephthalate)/poly(ethylene 2,6-naphthalate) blends by transesterification

The effects of transesterification on the miscibility of poly(ethylene terephthalate)/poly(ethylene 2,6-naphthalate) were studied. Blends were obtained by solution precipitation at room temperature to avoid transesterification during blend preparation. The physical blends and transesterified products were analyzed by wide-angle x-ray scattering, differential scanning calorimetry, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. It was found that the physical blends are immiscible and when the extent of transesterification reaches 50% of the completely randomized state, independent of blend composition, the blends are not crystallizable and show a single glass transition temperature between those of starting polymers. The interchange reactions were significantly influenced by annealing temperature and time but negligibly by blend composition. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Blends of organosilicon polymers with polystyrene and poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide)

Blends of organosilicon polymers with polystyrene, PS, and poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide), PPE, were investigated by transmission electron microscopy and differencial scanning calorimetry. Blends with poly(tetramethylsilphenylenesiloxane), PTMPS, showed a morphology characterized by globular domains dispersed in the organic matrix. An apparent homogeneous system was observed when poly(dimethylsilphenylene), PDSP, was mixed with PPE. A crystalline phase was found in samples with a higher PDSP content. The morphology of PS/PDSP blends with low PDSP content showed a dendritic phase dispersed in the PS-rich matrix. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 35: 2609–2616, 1997     

Phase separation in semicrystalline blends of poly(phenylene sulfide) and poly(ethylene terephthalate). I. Preparation of poly(phenylene sulfide)-graft-poly(ethylene terephthalate) copolymers by ester interchange and characterization utilizing the model compound 2,4-bis(phenylthio benzoic acid)

Blends of carboxyl functionalized poly(phenylene sulfide) (PPS) and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) were shown to undergo an ester interchange reaction during melt blending. Pendent carboxyl functionality randomly incorporated along the PPS chain reacts with the ester moiety of PET to form a graft copolymer. A model compound, 2,4-bis(phenylthio benzoic acid), has been synthesized to assist in defining the level of carboxyl functionality on the PPS chain. Evidence of the grafting reaction has been gathered from infrared spectroscopy, solubility measurements, and electron microscopy. When added to blends of PPS and PET homopolymers, the graft copolymer significantly reduces the average domain size of the dispersed phase across the entire composition range. This study describes the role that graft copolymers formed by ester interchange reactions can play in compatibilizing this immiscible blend system, with particular focus on the conditions leading to increased grafting efficiency. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci A: Polym Chem 37: 3473–3485, 1999     

Miscibility studies on blends of poly(phenylene oxide)/brominated polystyrene by viscometry

The viscosity behavior of poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO), brominated polystyrene (PBrS) and their blends at several compositions (25/75, 50/50, 75/25, 85/15) has been studied. The miscibility of this polymer system was investigated on the basis of the sign of the criteria Δb, α, ΔK, μ, and Δ[η] determined by viscosity. These investigations indicate that PPO/PBrS is miscible at the compositions of (75/25), (85/15) and completely immiscible at the compositions of (25/75), (50/50) in chloroform at 20 °C. Results from viscometry match very well those of DSC results cited in the literature.