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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 28: (Hydro) Gels and Elastomers
CPP 28.10: Vortrag
Mittwoch, 2. April 2014, 12:15–12:30, ZEU 222
The Swelling of Olympic Gels — •Michael Lang1, Jakob Fischer1,2,3, Marco Werner1,2, and Jens-Uwe Sommer1,2 — 1Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Hohe Straße 6, 01069 Dresden, Germany. — 2Institute of Theoretical Physics, Technische Universität Dresden, Zellescher Weg 17, 01062 Dresden, Germany. — 3Current address: Bio Systems Analysis Group, Jena Centre for Bioinformatics (JCB) and Department for Mathematics and Computer Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, 07743 Jena, Germany.
The swelling equilibrium of Olympic gels is studied by Monte Carlo Simulations. We observe that gels consisting of flexible cyclic molecules of a higher degree of polymerization N show a smaller equilibrium swelling degree Q∝ N−0.28φ0−0.72 for the same monomer volume fraction φ0 at network preparation. This observation is explained by a disinterpenetration process of overlapping non-concatenated polymers upon swelling. In the limit of a sufficiently large number of concatenations per cyclic molecule we expect that the equilibrium degree of swelling becomes proportional to φ0−1/2 independent of N. Our results challenge current textbook models for the equilibrium degree of swelling of entangled polymer networks.