No abstract

No abstract

Hydrodynamic and optical methods were applied to study conformational and physical properties of hyperbranched pyridylphenylene polymers in dilute solutions. The samples were synthesized using Diels–Alder polycyclocondensation. It was demonstrated that hydrodynamic properties of the studied macromolecules were typical for compact non‐percolated spheres. Optical and electro‐optical methods revealed information regarding the shape and asymmetry of the macromolecules (p ≈ 1.4). The contributions of optical shape effect to the observed flow birefringence of polypyridylphenylene solutions and intrinsic anisotropy of polarizability were evaluated and analysed. It was shown that varying the polymer composition (i.e. the degree of branching) caused considerable changes in the anisotropy of optical polarizability of the polymers. Dramatic difference of the electro‐optical properties in non‐polar (toluene) and polar (tetrachloroethane) solvents was found; this difference was related to the orientational correlation of polar solvent molecules with respect to the macromolecules. Dynamic properties were studied by non‐equilibrium electric birefringence which had a reasonable agreement with the dimensions estimated from hydrodynamic data. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry

Conducting polymers demonstrate low solubility in organic solvents. Introducing aliphatic substituents into polymer chains improves their solubility, but may also lead to changes in conformational characteristics of macromolecules. In the present work, the studies of hydrodynamic properties and conformational characteristics of comb-shaped poly(3-hexylthiophene) with aliphatic side substituents were carried out in chloroform solutions. Conformational analysis of the studied macromolecules was performed for the first time using homologous series with a wide range of molecular weights of the polymers in dilute solutions. The hydrodynamic properties of these macromolecules were interpreted using the worm-like spherocylinder model and the straight spherocylinder model. The projection of the monomer unit in the direction of the main polymer chain k 5 0.37 nm was determined experimentally. The following parameters of poly(3-hexylthiophene) were characterized and quantified: equilibrium rigidity (Kuhn segment length) ff 5 6.7 nm and hydrodynamic diameter of a polymer chain d 5 0.6 nm.

No abstract