Paper Number
PO39 

Session
Poster Session

Title
Rheology of ultra-high molecular weight ring polymer solutions

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. Banik, Sourya (Texas Tech University, Department of Chemical Engineering)
2. McKenna, Gregory B. (Texas Tech University, Department of Chemical Engineering)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Sourya Banik and Gregory B. McKenna
Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409

Speaker / Presenter 
Banik, Sourya

Text of Abstract
Rheology of ring polymers have piqued the interest of researchers to study the effect of absence of chain ends on entanglement. In the current endeavor, we study the rheological properties of monodisperse solutions of double stranded covalently closed circular (ccc) DNA molecule extracted from the genome of Staphylococcus epidermidis (molecular weight- 2.4 * 10^6 base pairs or 1.6*10^9 g/mol). Solutions of such ultra-high molecular weight rings can achieve more than 600 entanglements/ chain for a concentration of 1 mg/ml. The rheological response of the closed ring DNA molecules in the entangled regime is being studied and compared with their corresponding linear counterparts. Effect of concentration and mixtures of rings and linear blends are also being studied to investigate each of its effects on the measured rheological properties.