Incipient microphase separation in short chain perfluoropolyether-block-poly(ethylene oxide) copolymers

Soft Matter
Mahati ChintapalliNitash P Balsara

Abstract

Incipient microphase separation is observed by wide angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) in short chain multiblock copolymers consisting of perfluoropolyether (PFPE) and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) segments. Two PFPE-PEO block copolymers were studied; one with dihydroxyl end groups and one with dimethyl carbonate end groups. Despite having a low degree of polymerization (N ∼ 10), these materials exhibited significant scattering intensity, due to disordered concentration fluctuations between their PFPE-rich and PEO-rich domains. The disordered scattering intensity was fit to a model based on a multicomponent random phase approximation to determine the value of the interaction parameter, χ, and the radius of gyration, Rg. Over the temperature range 30-90 °C, the values of χ were determined to be very large (∼2-2.5), indicating a high degree of immiscibility between the PFPE and PEO blocks. In PFPE-PEO, due to the large electron density contrast between the fluorinated and non-fluorinated block and the high value of χ, disordered scattering was detected at intermediate scattering angles, (q ∼ 2 nm-1) for relatively small polymer chains. Our ability to detect concentration fluctuations was enabled by both a relatively large value of χ and ...Continue Reading

References

Jan 1, 1990·Annual Review of Physical Chemistry·F S Bates, G H Fredrickson
Dec 2, 2010·The European Physical Journal. E, Soft Matter·S Wołoszczuk, M Banaszak
Sep 5, 2013·Journal of the American Chemical Society·Jing SunRonald N Zuckermann
Nov 16, 2013·The Journal of Physical Chemistry. B·Alexander A Teran, Nitash P Balsara
Feb 12, 2014·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Dominica H C WongJoseph M DeSimone
Feb 16, 2016·Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics : PCCP·Hadi AbroshanHyung J Kim

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Citations

Sep 11, 2021·ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces·Lu BaiJean-François Gohy

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