Polymers 2011, 3(1), 281-298; doi:10.3390/polym3010281
Article

Structural and Mechanical Hysteresis at the Order-Order Transition of Block Copolymer Micellar Crystals

Theresa A. LaFollette and Lynn M. Walker* email
Department of Chemical Engineering, Center for Complex Fluids Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 30 November 2010; in revised form: 22 December 2010 / Accepted: 5 January 2011 / Published: 11 January 2011
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nano-Structures of Block Copolymers)
PDF Full-text Download PDF Full-Text [813 KB, uploaded 11 January 2011 11:32 CET]
Abstract: Concentrated solutions of a water-soluble block copolymer (PEO)20-(PPO)70-(PEO)20 show a thermoreversible transition from a liquid to a gel. Over a range of concentration there also exists an order-order transition (OOT) between cubically-packed spherical micelles and hexagonally-packed cylindrical micelles. This OOT displays a hysteresis between the heating and cooling transitions that is observed at both the macroscale through rheology and nanoscale through small angle neutron scattering (SANS). The hysteresis is caused by the persistence of the cubically-packed spherical micelle phase into the hexagonally-packed cylindrical micelle phase likely due to the hindered realignment of the spherical micelles into cylindrical micelles and then packing of the cylindrical micelles into a hexagonally-packed cylindrical micelle phase. This type of hysteresis must be fully characterized, and possibly avoided, for these block copolymer systems to be used as templates in nanocomposites.
Keywords: pluronic; block copolymer; order-order transition; SANS; SAXS; rheology; hysteresis  

Article Statistics

Click here to load and display the download statistics.

Cite This Article

MDPI and ACS Style

LaFollette, T.A.; Walker, L.M. Structural and Mechanical Hysteresis at the Order-Order Transition of Block Copolymer Micellar Crystals. Polymers 2011, 3, 281-298.

AMA Style

LaFollette TA, Walker LM. Structural and Mechanical Hysteresis at the Order-Order Transition of Block Copolymer Micellar Crystals. Polymers. 2011; 3(1):281-298.

Chicago/Turabian Style

LaFollette, Theresa A.; Walker, Lynn M. 2011. "Structural and Mechanical Hysteresis at the Order-Order Transition of Block Copolymer Micellar Crystals." Polymers 3, no. 1: 281-298.

Polymers EISSN 2073-4360 Published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland RSS E-Mail Table of Contents Alert