Physical gels formed by the nanostructuration of linear epoxy polymers based on amphiphilic monomers

I. A. ZUCCHI; C. E. HOPPE; M. J. GALANTE; R. J. J. WILLIAMS

Roma, Italia

Simposio; 4th International Symposium on Nanostructured and Functional Polymer-Based Materials and Nanocomposites; 2008

The reaction between stoichiometric amounts of diglycidylether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and dodecylamine (DA) generates a linear polymer. The conversion of epoxy groups was followed by NIR spectroscopy at 100 ¨¬C. A high conversion level (¡Ã0.95) was reached after 40 minutes. The obtained product (Tg= 10.4¨¬C) was completely soluble in different solvents such as: THF, acetone, DMF, toluene, dichloromethane and chloroform. However, after14 h heating at 100 ¨¬C the polymer became insoluble in most solvents. Only a prolonged heating in p-xylene at 135 ¨¬C could dissolve the polymer. A similar phenomenon was observed after a prolonged storage at room temperature. The explanation of the observed behavior is related to the self-assembly of dodecyl chains, a process that occurs much more slowly than the polymerization reaction. This leads to the formation of a physical gel where the crosslinks are formed by associations among dodecyl chains.