Blending with a hydrogen-bonding supramolecular polymer is shown to be a successful novel strategy to induce microphase-separation in the melt of a Pluronic polyether block copolymer. The supramolecular polymer is a polybutadiene derivative with urea-urethane end caps. Microphase separation is analysed using small-angle X-ray scattering and its influence on the macroscopic rheological propertie...

We have generalized the microscopic polymer reference interaction site model (PRISM) theory to study the structure and phase behavior of polymer-tethered spherical nanoparticles in a dense homopolymer melt. In the absence of a polymer matrix, fluids of such hybrid nanoparticles show strong concentration fluctuations indicative of aggregate formation and/or a tendency for microphase separation a...

We study microphase ordering of molten randomly grafted copolymers ~RGCs! by using a mean field theory and the replica method to calculate the quenched average. Our results illustrate that in the weak segregation limit ~WSI!, the optimal wave vector q* of the lamellar phase formed by molten RGCs, has a temperature dependence different from either linear random copolymers ~LRCs! or diblock copol...

the microphase separation of hydrated perfluorinated sulfonic acid membrane nafion was investigated using dissipative particle dynamics (dpd). the nafion as a polymer was modelled by connecting coarse grained beads which corresponds to the hydrophobic backbone of polytetrafluoroethylene and perfluorinated side chains terminated by hydrophilic end particles of sulfonic acid groups [1, 2]. each f...

The microphase separation transition in the weakly charged polyelectrolyte gels

We investigate trie behavior of symmetric AB random copolymer melt near trie point of microphase separation in trie framework of a one-trop (Hartree-Fock) approximation, that exactly salves trie problem. We bave shown that composition fluctuations result to complete elimination of trie microphase separation predicted in trie frarnework a mean-field approximation [1-5]. Using variational techniq...

– We consider microand macro-phase separation in blends of AB and BC flexible diblock copolymers. We show that, depending on architecture, a number of phase diagram topologies are possible. Microphase separation or macrophase separation can occur, and there are a variety of possible Lifshitz points. Because of the rich parameter space, Lifshitz points of multiple order are possible. We demonstr...

When two types of side chains (A,B) are densely grafted to a (stiff) backbone and the resulting bottlebrush polymer is in a solution under poor solvent conditions, an incompatibility between A and B leads to microphase separation in the resulting cylindrical brush. The possible types of ordering are reminiscent of the ordering of block copolymers in cylindrical confinement. Starting from this a...

Submitted for the MAR05 Meeting of The American Physical Society Phase ordering mechanism of triblock copolymers. A dynamic density functional study JIANFENG XIA, FENG QIU, HONGDONG ZHANG, YULIANG YANG — Using dynamic density functional theory (DDFT), we studied the morphology and kinetics of microphase separation of linear triblock copolymers. ABC triblock copolymers with equal and unequal int...