Morphology of Sulfonated Styrenic Pentablock Copolymer Solutions and Membranes

ORAL

Abstract

We report a systematic investigation of the morphology of sulfonated styrenic pentablock copolymer solutions and membranes obtained from Kraton Polymers LLC. The polymer studied was poly((t-butyl-styrene)-b-(ethylene-r-butylene)-b-(styrene-r-styrene sulfonate)-b-(ethylene-r-butylene)-b-(t-butyl-styrene)). Small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) revealed that the solutions exhibited micellar morphologies. The solution SAXS data was modeled using the Kinning-Thomas model to obtain radius of the micelle core, the radius of closest approach between two micelles and the volume fraction of micelles. The membranes exhibited anisotropic morphologies with different d-spacings in-plane and through-plane. A good linear correlation was observed between the radius of closest approach between two micelles in the solutions and the d-spacings in the membranes. Efforts are underway to characterize the type of morphology in the membranes using electron microscopy and correlate them to the transport properties.

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Authors

  • Arun Kota

    • Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania

  • Karen Winey

    • University of Pennsylvania
    • Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
    • Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
    • Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6272