Electrorheological Properties of Suspensions of PAn-PEO-PAn Triblock Copolymer Particles

The PAn-PEO-PAn triblock copolymer with the PEG chain length of 400 was synthesized by chemical oxidation copolymerization of aniline and α,ω-bis（p-aminophenyl）poly（ethylene glycol）and characterized by FT-IR and TEM.The experimental results show that the copolymer particles are of μtypical core-shell structure after the self-assembly process in water.Its conductivity is much lower than that of the pure PAn.The suspension containing 20 vol% PAn-PEO-PAn tiblock copolymer in silicone oil exhibits.a typical electrorheological （ER） effect in DC electric field.while it shows a lower leakage current density than that of the pure PAn-based ER fluids.Therefore,the PEO shell hinders the electric hop among PANI chains and decreases the current density of ER fluids in an external electric field.at the same time the interface polarity improves the ER effects.

Reconstruction of Core-Shell Dispersed Particles in Impact Polypropylene Copolymer during Extrusion

We reported an approach to reconstruct the complex phase morphology of impact polypropylene copolymer （IPC） with core-shell dispersed particles and to optimize its toughness in approximate shear condition. The molten-state annealing results indicate that the phase structure with core-shell dispersed particles is unstable and could be completely destroyed by static annealing, resulting in the degradation of impact strength. By using a co-rotating twin screw extruder, we found that the dispersed particle with core-shell structure could be rebuilt in appropriate condition with the recovery of excellent impact strength due to both the huge interfacial tension during solidification and the great difference in viscosity of components. Results reveal that almost all the extruded IPCs show the impact strength 60%-90% higher than that of annealed IPCs at room temperature. And the twice-extruded IPC shows the highest impact strength, 446% higher than that of IPC annealed for 30 min. As for low temperature tests, the impact strength of extruded IPCs also increases by 33%-58%. According to adjusting the processing conditions including extrusion speed, extrusion frequency and temperature, an optimization of toughness was well established.

Microporous Organic Nanotube Networks from Hyper Cross-linking Core-shell Bottlebrush Copolymers for Selective Adsorption Study

We report a synthesis of microporous organic nanotube networks（MONNs） by a combination of hyper cross-linking and molecular templating of core-shell bottlebrush copolymers. The intrabrush and interbrush cross-linking of polystyrene（PS） shell layer in the core-shell bottlebrush copolymers led to the formation of micropores and large-sized nanopores（meso/macrospores） in MONNs, respectively, while selective removal of polylactide（PLA） core layer generated mesoporous tubular structure. The size of PLA-templated mesoporous cores and porous structure both at micro-and meso-scale could be controlled by simple tuning of the ratio of core/shell or the PLA core fraction in the bottlebrush precursors. Moreover, the resultant MONNs showed a highly selective adsorption capacity for the positively charged dyes on the basis of multi-porosity and carboxylate group-rich structure. In addition, MONNs also exhibited effective performance in size-selective adsorption of biomacromolecules. This work represents a new avenue for the preparation of MONNs and also provides a new application for molecular bottlebrushes in nanotechnology.

Critical Role of Ethylene-Propylene Block Copolymer in Impact Polypropylene Copolymer

Ethylene-propylene block copolymer(EbP) is a vital component in impact polypropylene copolymer(IPC), yet its distribution in the multiphase composite material and how it influences the phase structure and the mechanical properties are not well understood. In this work,four IPCs were investigated by atomic force microscopy-infrared(AFM-IR) to assess the phase compositions in situ, based on which in conjunction with the chain microstructure information obtained ex situ the distributions of the copolymer components were derived for each alloy. For the IPCs whose EbP comprises long P and long E segments, the EbP fraction was found to phase separate from the rubber and the PP matrix to form the cores of the disperse particles with the E-P segmented copolymer(EsP). In contrast, in the IPC with EbP composed of long P and short E segments, the EbP fraction formed an outer shell for the rubber particles with the cores comprising the EsP alone, and this IPC, containing a lower E comonomer content than its counterpart, exhibited both better impact resistance and higher flexural modulus. These results clarify how the chain structure of EbP governs the phase morphology in IPC, which in turn impacts the properties of the composite material.