A rheological investigation of the association between a non-ionic microemulsion and hydrophobically modified PEG. Influence of polymer architecture

Hydrophobically modified polymers (HM-P) typically behave as thickeners in a wide range of systems. The thickening effect in an aqueous solution of this kind of polymer depends on intermolecular hydrophobic associations and also on chain entanglements if the polymer concentration is significantly above the overlap concentration. In the present investigation a rather short end-capped polymer has been investigated at concentrations that are significantly below the overlap concentration. Despite the rather low polymer concentration, polymer chains were connected into a three-dimensional network by using microemulsion droplets as cross-linking points. The simple structure of the solution simplifies interpretations of results since chain entanglements can be expected to be of low importance and only intermolecular hydrophobic associations have to be considered. In particular the rheological response is in most cases well characterized by one single relaxation time and, then, the solution can be rationalized within the framework of the Maxwell model. We have found that the length of the polymer chain's hydrophobic end-groups, as well as the temperature, have a large influence on dynamics of the system, while the length of the hydrophilic mid-block has a relatively small significance. On the other hand, the connectivity in the system depends critically on the microemulsion concentration. Thus, a maximum was found in viscosity as a function of volume fraction, interpreted as being due to a decrease in crosslink lifetime. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.