On the correlation of the glass transition temperature of a copolymer with its comonomer sequences

The glass transition temperature of a copolymer depends not only on chemical composition but also on its comonomer sequences. This experimental fact is explained by Barton's and Johnston's equations. Their equations, though complicated, become simple, if a suitable parameter is used to describe the comonomer sequences. It is shown that with these new expressions, their equations can be used to understand glass transition temperatures of two additional types of copolymers, compatible multiblock copolymers and homopolymers with various tacticities treated as steric copolymers.Dedicated to Professor Bernhard Wunderlich on the occasion of his 65th birthdayWe wish to thank the reviewer for his/her kind linguistic improvement of this article.     

MONTE CARLO SIMULATION OF TRIBLOCK COPOLYMER/HOMOPOLYMER BLEND FILMS

1. INTRODUCTION The extensive applications of block copolymer have been studied in detail due to their special molecular architecture and characteristic [1,2]. Recently, many studies including theoretical analysis and experimental techniques have addressed the polymer blend system of diblock copolymer/homopolymer [3~9]. An early investigation presented a quantitative analysis of homopolymer distributions in well-ordered copolymer microdomains through mixing polystyrene (PS) or poly methyl…     

基于原子转移自由基聚合技术的偶氮苯星形液晶聚合物的合成与表征

利用原子转移自由基聚合(ATRP)技术合成了含不同端基取代基的偶氮苯三臂星形侧链液晶聚合物. 均苯三酚与2-溴异丁酰溴通过酯化反应制备三官能团引发剂, 引发偶氮苯单体6-[4-(4-甲氧基苯基偶氮)酚氧基]己基甲基丙烯酸酯(MMAzo)或6-[4-(4-乙氧基苯基偶氮)酚氧基]己基甲基丙烯酸酯(EMAzo)的ATRP反应. 利用核磁共振氢谱(¹H NMR)、凝胶色谱(GPC)、差示扫描量热法(DSC)和偏光显微镜(POM)等手段对星形聚合物进行表征. 星形聚合物的液晶性与相应均聚物相似, 但偶氮苯端基取代基的不同导致星形聚合物的液晶性差别显著. 在紫外/可见光照射下星形聚合物呈现明显的异构化转变.     

均聚物/共聚物共混体系的相行为研究进展

通过控制均聚物与共聚物共混过程中的相行为,能够得到许多性能优异的材料。本文从理论和实验两方面总结了影响均聚物／共聚物共混体系相容性和形态结构的因素,主要包括均聚物的分子量、浓度,共聚物的组成、结构、浓度,与均聚物相应的共聚物组分的分子量,共聚物分子内的相互作用,均聚物与共聚物分子间的相互作用等。     

Designing polymers for nuclear track detection

This article describes our attempts since 1996 to systematically design and synthesize monomers and corresponding polymers for nuclear track detection. So far more than 15 homopolymers/copolymers have been prepared and tested by us for this purpose. Some of these polymers show better track detection characteristics vis-á-vis commercially available poly allyl diglycol carbonate (PADC) track detectors.      

One-pot synthesis of PDMAEMA nanocapsules for controlled release of hydrophobic cargo

In this work, poly((N,N-dimethyl amino)ethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA) homopolymers are synthesized using RAFT technique, which is then used as stabilizers to prepare miniemulsion droplets in a toluene/hexadecane(HD)/1,2-Bis-(2-iodoethyl)ethane(BIEE)/hydrophobic molecule/water mixture. Upon the reaction between BIEE and the stabilizers of miniemulsion droplets, the polymeric nanocapsules are formed and capable of encapsulating hydrophobic molecule in their oil core in one-step reaction. The release of hydrophobic cargo from the nanocapsules can be controlled by the variation of amount of surfactant (Tween®20) in the release medium and a long duration sustained release was achieved.     

Relationship Between Total Surface Tension of Monomer and Its Homopolymer

The surface and interfacial properties of polymers are important for their applications. In one of our previous articles, we discussed the relationship between the dispersive surface tension component and the density and molecular weight of solvents and polymers to seek a simple and easy method to estimate the rationality of surface tension results of polymers. We found that for 30 organic solvents and 12 polymers, there was a good relationship between the dispersive surface tension and the experiential parameter 1/ρ² M ^0.2 _w . In this article, the existence of the squared density term is simply deduced from the general molecular interaction energy equation and is proved with four pairs of polymer/monomer; these are polystyrene/styrene, polyisoprene/isoprene, polymethyl methacrylate/methyl methacrylate, and polyvinyl acetate/vinyl acetate.     

A new periodic pattern with five‐neighbored domain packing from ABC triblock terpolymer/B homopolymer blend

Self‐assembled structures from poly(isoprene‐b‐styrene‐b‐2‐vinylpyridine)(ISP)/styrene homopolymer blend were investigated. Five terpolymers whose total molecular weight, M, is in the narrow range of 121k < M < 214k, and volume fractions of the center block polystyrenes, ?_S, are similar at around 0.55, were prepared as parent block terpolymers. Their ?_P/?_I ratios, used as an indicator of asymmetry, are varied in the range 0.32 < ?_P/?_I < 2.46. Three low‐molecular weight styrene homopolymers with molecular weights of 3k, 9k, and 12k, respectively, were mixed with those block terpolymers to produce blends with almost constant styrene content within the range 0.65 < ?_S < 0.68. Both ISP/S(3k) and ISP/S(12k) blend series show a morphological transition from tetragonally packed cylinders (TPC) to double hexagonal structure (DHS) with hexagonally arrayed polyisoprene cylinders, each surrounded by six thin cylinders as satellites. If one focuses on ISP‐III(150k)/S blends whose ?_P/?_I is 0.88, TPC for ISP‐III/S(3k) was transformed to DHS for ISP‐III/S(12k), evidently due to the molecular weight effect of the added homopolymer. Finally a new periodic pattern, having P cylinders surrounded by five I cylinders each, has been discovered from ISP‐III/S(9k) at overall composition of ?_I/?_S/?_P = 0.17/0.68/0.15 and polystyrene block/styrene homopolymer ratio of w_S(b)/w_S(h) = 1.4. This structure was confirmed to possess hexagonal symmetry with larger unit cell than regular patterns ever known by X‐ray diffraction experiment. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 907–911     

Separation of antipyretic analgesics by open tubular capillary electrochromatography with homopolymer coatings

This study developed an open‐tubular capillary electrochromatography protocol for the analysis of antipyretic analgesic drugs, which used a multifunctional homopolymer as coating. A controlled/living radical polymerization strategy was adopted to obtain poly(N‐acryloxysuccinimide) with a tunable chain‐length. The homopolymer coating enhanced the separation performance by contributing to the hydrophobic and hydrogen‐bonding interactions between the analytes and the homopolymer. The effect of polymer chain‐length and buffer pH and concentration on the separation efficiency was evaluated. In this approach, baseline separation of the three test drugs was achieved within 15 min. The repeatability of the prepared homopolymer coating was investigated, with the relative standard deviations < 2.88% observed in intra‐ and interday runs. Good linearity in the 5–800 µM range (R² ≥ 0.998) demonstrates that accurate quantitative analysis of real samples was achieved. Moreover, the proposed assay was used to quantify the three drugs (aminopyrine, 4‐aminoantipyrine, and phenacetin) in urine samples, achieving recovery rates between 92.1 and 108.7%. This promising methodology may be used for the analysis of drugs in real bio‐samples and for the development of unique homopolymer coatings for open‐tubular capillary electrochromatography systems.     

Crew‐cut aggregates from self‐assembly of blends of polystyrene‐b‐poly(acrylic acid) block copolymers and homopolystyrene in solution

The formation and morphological characteristics of crew‐cut aggregates from blends of polystyrene‐b‐poly(acrylic acid) diblock copolymer and polystyrene homopolymer in solution were studied by static light scattering, transmission electron microscopy and size exclusion chromatography. The crew‐cut aggregates, consisting of a polystyrene core and a poly(acrylic acid) corona, were prepared by direct dissolution of the polymer blends in a selective solvent mixture consisting of 93 wt % dimethylformamide and 7 wt % water. It is found that the aggregation behavior depends strongly on the relative volume fractions of the block copolymer and homopolymer in the blends. This is a result of the difference in solubility between the copolymer and the homopolymer in solution which, in turn, influences their miscibility and mutual solubility and consequently the morphology of the formed crew‐cut aggregates. Specifically, when the homopolymer fraction is low, it is mainly dissolved in the cores of the crew‐cut aggregates formed by the block copolymer. When the homopolymer fraction exceeds its solubility limit in the copolymer micelles, aggregates of another type are formed which contain a major fraction of the homopolymer. These aggregates are usually much larger than the primary micelles and have an internal structure due to the formation of reverse micelles from the dissolved block copolymer chains. The importance of thermodynamic vs. kinetic aspects during the formation of the crew‐cut aggregates is also discussed. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 37: 1469–1484, 1999