The pervasiveness of highly branched systems as optimized structures in biological and abiotic fields renders dendritic polymers important architectures, which can offer numerous technological advantages. Perfectly branched dendrimers are produced via iterative syntheses while randomly branched, hyperbranched polymers are synthesized via pseudo-one pot methods. One of the most widely employed families of dendritic polymers utilizes 3-hydroxy-2-(hydroxymethyl)-2-methylpropanoic acid or �bis-MPA� as a monomer. Hydroxyl and carbonyl functional groups in the structure of bis-MPA based dendritic polymers can participate in the formation of multiple hydrogen bonds. These hydrogen bonds play a key role in defining the bulk properties of these systems where anomalous mechanical, rheological, and thermodynamic experimental trends were observed. The primary goal of this work was to reveal the hydrogen bond organization and hydrogen bond driven structural ordering in hyperbranched bis-MPA based polymers and to uncover the link between hydrogen bonding, thermal and volumetric properties. In particular, the nature and properties of the previously discovered string-like hydrogen bond clusters formed by the terminal hydroxyl groups situated on the exterior surface of the hyperbranched species was methodically investigated. The extensive hydrogen bonding and biodegradability of bis-MPA based hyperbranched polymers was extended for composite preparation utilizing nanocrystalline cellulose as the reinforcement. 

Dynamic hydrogen bond-driven structural ordering in hydroxylated hyperbranched polymers for biodegradable composites

247th National Meeting (2014)

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