Paper Number
SM41 

Session
Polymer Solutions and Melts

Title
Understanding and modelling the dynamics of entangled linear associative polymer melts

Presentation Date and Time
October 14, 2015 (Wednesday) 4:00

Track / Room
Track 2 / Constellation D

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. van Ruymbeke, Evelyne (Université catholique de Louvain, Bio and Soft Matter)
2. Hawke, Laurence (Université catholique de Louvain, Bio and Soft Matter)
3. Sharma, Ashwinikumar (DSM, DSM Ahead)
4. Goldansaz, Hadi (Université catholique de Louvain, Bio and Soft Matter)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Evelyne van Ruymbeke¹, Laurence Hawke¹, Ashwinikumar Sharma², and Hadi Goldansaz^1
1Bio and Soft Matter, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium; ²DSM Ahead, DSM, Geleen, The Netherlands

Speaker / Presenter 
van Ruymbeke, Evelyne

Text of Abstract
Associating polymers consist of polymer chains that carry functional groups. These functional groups are capable of forming transient interactions/bonds, which provide a convenient control of the physical properties of this class of polymeric systems. For example, depending on the temperature or/and the concentration of functional groups, the rheological behaviour of associative polymers ranges from rubber-like to liquid-like. We focus on melts of entangled, linear associative polymers. In order to model their viscoelastic properties, we extend our TMA tube based model that successfully predicts the linear viscoelasticity of ordinary, i.e. non-associative, polymer melts, in order to account for the stickers along the chains. These last ones give rise to a slow stress relaxation process, which is impossible to capture by ordinary reptation. To describe the dynamics of the system at intermediate frequencies (timescales), we show that tension equilibration must be considered, which is a slow Rouse-like relaxation process along the entangled chains, due to the blinking nature of the mobile polymer fraction. A detailed comparison between experimental data and model predictions is performed on different supramolecular systems.