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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Mark GeogheganORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Royal Society of Chemistry, 2018.
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© 2018 The Royal Society of Chemistry.Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and neutron spin-echo (NSE) have been used to investigate the temperature-dependent solution behaviour of highly-branched poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (HB-PNIPAM). SANS experiments have shown that water is a good solvent for both HB-PNIPAM and a linear PNIPAM control at low temperatures where the small angle scattering is described by a single correlation length model. Increasing the temperature leads to a gradual collapse of HB-PNIPAM until above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST), at which point aggregation occurs, forming disperse spherical particles of up to 60 nm in diameter, independent of the degree of branching. However, SANS from linear PNIPAM above the LCST is described by a model that combines particulate structure and a contribution from solvated chains. NSE was used to study the internal and translational solution dynamics of HB-PNIPAM chains below the LCST. Internal HB-PNIPAM dynamics is described well by the Rouse model for non-entangled chains.
Author(s): Al-Baradi AM, Rimmer S, Carter SR, De Silva JP, King SM, Maccarini M, Farago B, Noirez L, Geoghegan M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Soft Matter
Year: 2018
Volume: 14
Issue: 8
Pages: 1482-1491
Online publication date: 05/02/2018
Acceptance date: 27/01/2018
Date deposited: 05/08/2021
ISSN (print): 1744-683X
ISSN (electronic): 1744-6848
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
URL: https://doi.org/10.1039/c7sm02330h
DOI: 10.1039/c7sm02330h
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