Conformational Dynamics of Living Polymers

by Ali Malek
Doctoral thesis
Date of Examination:2018-05-04
Date of issue:2018-07-11
Advisor:Prof. Dr. Reiner Kree
Referee:Prof. Dr. Reiner Kree
Referee:Prof. Dr. Marcus Müller
Persistent Address: http://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-6947

 

 

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Abstract

English

Polymerization is outstanding among chemical reaction processes due to its importance for technical applications as well as for an understanding of complex processes in living matters. In this thesis, we have studied the conformational dynamics of linear homopolymers, which undergo chain-growth polymerization. Such situations are of importance, because they constitute a large part of the technically and biologically relevant processes. Understanding the evolution of such reacting polymers necessitates the knowledge of the conformational evolution of non-reacting polymers as well as the underlying mechanism of chemical reactions. These two topics are both well established and have been extensively studied in physics and chemistry. The majority of studies, however, have considered the two processes separately. There are situations, where the conformational evolution of the chain and the chemical reaction occur at comparable rates and the two aspects of dynamics of the polymer may be coupled in several non-trivial ways. We have extended the Rouse model to cases where the polymer undergoes polymerization and studied the impact of the chain growth on the conformational properties of the chain.
Keywords: polymer; living polymerization; polymer dynamics; chain-growth polymerization; rheology; polymer conformation
 
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