화학공학소재연구정보센터
Macromolecules, Vol.49, No.17, 6568-6577, 2016
Structure and Dynamics of Interacting Nanoparticles in Semidilute Polymer Solutions
We investigate the structure and dynamics of silica nanoparticles and polymer chains in semidilute solutions of high molecular weight polystyrene in 2-butanone to determine the effect of long-range interparticle interactions on the coupling between particle and polymer dynamics. Particles at concentrations of 1-10 wt % are well dispersed in the semidilute polymer solutions and exhibit long-range electrostatic repulsions between particles. Because the particles are comparably sized to the radius of gyration of the polymer, the particle dynamics is predicted to couple to that of the polymer. We verify that the polymer structure and dynamics are not significantly affected by the particles, indicating that the particle polymer coupling does not change with increasing particle loading. We find that the-coupling between the dynamics of comparably sized particles and polymer results in subdiffusive particle dynamics, as expected. Over the interparticle distance, however, the particle dynamics is hindered and not fully described by the relaxation of the surrounding polymer chains. Instead, the particle dynamics is inversely related to the structure factor, suggesting that physical particle polymer coupling on short length scales and interparticle interactions on long length scales both present energetic barriers to particle motion that lead to subdiffusive dynamics and de Gennes narrowing, respectively.