Investigation of relaxations in polystyrene–polyoxyethylene copolymer by thermally stimulated current

The diblock copolymer containing 43.5 wt.% of polystyrene (PS) (M_w=15 000) and polyoxyethylene (POE) (M_w=19 500) was investigated by integral and by partial thermally stimulated depolarization current (TSDC) measurements in the temperature range of 173–293 K. The first peak P₁, widely distributed from 183 to 213 K, was a dipolar peak attributed to the initial stage of glass transition in POE. The second peak P₂, with a maximum at 273 K, was due to glass transition. The third peak P₃, with a maximum at about 263 K, was caused by the space charge relaxation localized at the interfaces between the ordered and nonordered phases in POE, Maxwell–Wagner relaxation, representing a precursor in melting of POE crystals. The results were supported by determination of activation energy E_a of the partial peaks, which covered the whole range of investigation, and by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements. The E_a(T) distribution showed a maximum in entropy change at 219±4 K. Some runs with samples containing different amounts of the PS component were considered. All the relaxations were coming from the POE block. The current due to PS slightly overlapped the total spectra without interaction. The influence of the repeated runs was observed and discussed.