Tailored non-ionic polymers with UCST-type phase transition properties in water and electrolytes

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Seema Agarwal; Professor Dr. Matthias Karg
• Subject Area: Preparatory and Physical Chemistry of Polymers
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 270259432

• Final Report Year: 2021

Final Report Abstract

Several tailor-made, non-ionic polymers based on monomers containing primary amide groups in the side-chain were prepared by radical polymerization with an aim to realize new thermoresponsive systems that feature an upper critical solution temperature-type (UCST-type) phase transition behavior. The influence of the monomer structure, glass transition temperature, copolymer composition, and concentration on the phase transition behavior (transition type, hysteresis, and cloud points) were studied by different analytical methods. Investigation of the phase transition behavior on different length and time scales was carried out using light and neutron based scattering methods.

Publications

• LCST and UCST in One: Double Thermoresponsive Behavior of Block Copolymers of Poly(ethylene glycol) and Poly(acrylamide-coacrylonitrile), Langmuir 2015, 31 (32), 8940
  F. Käfer, Fangyao L. Ullrich Stahlschmidt, V. Jerome, R. Freitag, M. Karg, S. Agarwal
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.5b02006)
• Tunable, Concentration-Independent, Sharp, Hysteresis-Free UCST Phase Transition from Poly(N-Acryloyl Glycinamide-Acrylonitrile, J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2017, 55, 274
  F. Käfer, A. Lerch, S. Agarwal
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/pola.28374)
• Let There be Light: Polymeric Micelles with Upper Critical Solution, Small 2018, 1802420
  Y. Deng, F. Käfer, T. Chen, Q. Jin, J. Ji, S. Agarwal
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201802420)
• Tuning the Phase Transition from UCST‐Type to LCST‐Type by Composition Variation of Polymethacrylamide Polymers, Macromol. Rapid Commun. 2018, 39, 1800640
  F. Käfer, M. Pretscher, S. Agarwal
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/marc.201800640)
• Interpenetrating Thermophobic, Thermophilic Dual Responsive Network, J. Polym. Sci. Part A: Polymer Chemistry 2019, 57, 539
  F. Käfer, Y. Hu, Y.J. Wang, Z. L. Wu, S. Agarwal
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/pola.29292)