Accelerated discovery of structure-LCST relationships for end-functionalized polymer libraries using a temperature gradient approach

ANYL 454

Satyasankar Jana1, Steven P. Rannard, steven.rannard@unilever.com2, and Andrew I. Cooper, aicooper@liv.ac.uk1. (1) Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool, Crown Street, Liverpool, L69 3BX, United Kingdom, (2) Port Sunlight Laboratory, Unilever Research, Quarry Road East, Bebington, CH63 3JW, United Kingdom
We present here a novel "high throughput" (HT) temperature gradient approach for the determination of the low critical solution temperature (LCST) for end-functionalized water-soluble polymers. We show that this method of analysis is very much faster than typical determination methods, such as cloud point measurements, while maintaining a high level of precision. The method was first validated by determining the effect of salt concentration on the LCST for polyNIPAM in neutral water. The approach was then used to identify the effect on aqueous phase behavior of subtle changes in molecular weight and end group composition in a small library water soluble poly(N,N-dimethyl amino ethyl methacrylate). Our results show that this is a powerful accelerated analytical method for determining polymer phase behavior which can also be extended to other rapid solubility studies.

 

Analytical Approaches
1:30 PM-4:30 PM, Thursday, August 23, 2007 BCEC -- 104C, Oral

Division of Analytical Chemistry

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007