Paper Number
PO37 

Session
Poster Session

Title
A study of the linear and nonlinear viscoelastic properties of cyclic poly(3,6-dioxa-1,8-octanedithiol) (polyDODT)

Presentation Date and Time
October 17, 2018 (Wednesday) 6:30

Track / Room
Poster Session / Woodway II/III

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

  1. Chen, Dongjie (Texas Tech University, Department of Chemical Engineering)
  2. McKenna, Gregory B. (Texas Tech University, Department of Chemical Engineering)
  3. Puskas, Judit E. (The University of Akron, Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
  4. Helfer, Carin A. (The University of Akron, Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
  5. Qian, Zhiyuan (Texas Tech University, Chemical Engineering)
  6. Kornfield, Julia A. (California Institute of Technology, Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Dongjie Chen1, Gregory B. McKenna1, Judit E. Puskas2, Carin A. Helfer2, Zhiyuan Qian1, and Julia A. Kornfield3
1Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409; 2Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-0406; 3Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125

Speaker / Presenter 
Chen, Dongjie

Text of Abstract
Rheology of ring-like or circular polymers remains an area of active research due to the difficulty of making ring polymers of sufficient purity free of linear contaminants. Furthermore, past work has been limited to rings made in dilute solution and, consequently, have been limited to sizes of approximately 15 entanglements in the linear analog. Furthermore, synthesis in dilute solution results in small amounts of material being available for study. This problem has been overcome by reversible radical recombination polymerization (R3P) recently developed in the Puskas laboratories. R3P synthesis can produce 10-100g scale circular polymer which opens new avenues of research. Here we have studied poly(3,6-dioxa-1,8-octanedithiol) (polyDODT) synthesized by R3P of different molecular weights and solutions of polyDODT solution as a function of concentration using linear dynamic measurements and single and double step strain experiments to explore the nonlinear rheology. Of interest is that the largest polyDODT ring investigated to date has a molecular mass corresponding to approximately 100 entanglements in the linear counterpart. By characterizing the properties as a function of molecular weight and solution concentration it is expected that new information concerning ring dynamics and ring/linear mixture dynamics will be achieved. Preliminary results from our studies will be presented.