On the properties of poly(isoprene-b-ferrocenylmethyl methacrylate) block copolymers

By combining poly(1,4-isoprene) (PI) with poly(ferrocenylmethyl methacrylate) (PFMMA) in a diblock copolymer structure by means of anionic polymerization we obtained narrowly dispersed PI-b-PFMMA copolymers with molecular weight ranging from 13000 to 62000 g/mol. The products were stable up to 228 degrees C, according to thermal gravimetry, which allowed us to further investigate their viscoelastic and Xray scattering properties at elevated temperature by rheology and SAXS, respectively. For PI-b-PFMMA with total molecular weight 13400 g/mol a phase transition at 105 degrees C was identified leading to the segmental mixing at T > 105 degrees C and microphase separation at T < 105 degrees C. The microphase separated morphology acquired hexahonally packed cylinder (HEX) microstructure in bulk. The explanation of the ordered HEX morphology was derived from a quantification of the thermodynamic immiscibility between PI and PFMMA segments via random phase approximation theory yielding generally accepted dependency of the Flory-Huggins interaction parameter (chi) on temperature. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.