Abstract
The conformation and clusterization of comb like polymers of polystyrene densely grafted with oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) side chains in 1.0 wt% solutions of D2O, toluene-d8 and methanol-d4 was investigated as a function of the degree of polymerization (DP) of the backbone by small angle neutron scattering (SANS). Each side chain had four EG repeat units and the DP of the polystyrene backbone was varied from 8 to 85. The global conformation of the polymers in toluene and methanol was shown to assume ellipsoidal, cylindrical or worm-like chain morphologies with increasing DP of the polystyrene backbone. At the same time, in D2O, the polymer conformation was described by the form factor of rigid cylinders. The second viral coefficient was measured for the polymer with a DP of 85 in all three solvents and the solvent quality of toluene, methanol and D2O was identified as good, marginal and poor for this polymer. Due to a poor solvent quality, the PS backbone (DP = 85) is partially collapsed in D2O whereas it is moderately expanded in toluene and methanol. Polymers with the DP of 8 were found to aggregate into clusters in all three solvents, with the characteristic size between 100 and 200 ?and a fractal dimension of 2. With increase of the DP, the clusters diminished in D2O and completely disappeared in toluene and methanol. This observation suggests that the clusterization of these short side-chain polymers is caused by end group and hydrogen bonding interactions between different chains.