Molecular weight determination by visualization of stretched polycation molecules

PMSE 332

Vera Bocharova, bocharova@ipfdd.de1, Anton Kiriy, kiriy@ipfdd.de1, M. Stamm, stamm@ipfdd.de2, Christophe Detrembleur, christophe.detrembleur@ulg.ac.be3, and Robert Jérôme, rjerome@ulg.ac.be3. (1) Department of Nanostructured Materials, Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research Dresden, Hohe Strasse 6, 01069 Dresden, Germany, (2) Department of Nanostructured Materials, Leibniz Institut für Polymerforschung, Dresden e.V, Hohe Strasse 6, Dresden 01069, Germany, (3) CERM - University of Liege, Sart-Tilman B6a, Liege, 4000, Belgium
The standard methods of molecular weight determination are hardly applicable to polyelectrolytes and macromolecules with complex architecture, such as molecular brushes. The direct visualization of the adsorbed polymer chains and subsequent measuring of their contour length by tapping mode atomic force microscopy could, in principle, allow for the determination of the molecular weight if the following two requirements are fulfilled: i) the whole molecular contour is properly resolved; ii) the length of a monomer unit is known. We report on the conditions to stretch and align polycation chains by spin-coating onto mica upon the co-deposition with octylamine which provides hydrophobization of mica. In this work the contour length of adsorbed polystyrene-graft-poly(2-vinyl pyridine) molecules was determined and the molecular weight was calculated.
 

Joint PMSE/POLY Poster Session
6:00 PM-8:00 PM, Tuesday, 12 September 2006 Moscone Center -- Hall D, Poster

Division of Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering

The 232nd ACS National Meeting, San Francisco, CA, September 10-14, 2006