Bottlebrush polymers, consisting of a linear backbone with densely grafted side chains, have been attracted a lot of attentions because of their unique structural and property characteristics. Their global conformations in solutions are dictated by both the intrinsic structure of the polymer and extrinsic conditions (including the solvent quality and concentration). In general, increasing the concentration reduces the overall size of the bottlebrush polymer because of excluding volume effects. However, typical parameters used to describe chain conformations, such as persistence/contour length, radius of gyration, are over-simplified. Moreover, such conformational information comprises contributions from both backbone and side chain. In this study, we elucidate both backbone and side chain conformations of all-acrylic bottlebrush polymer using selective deuteration combined with small-angle neutron scattering in a good solvent.

Decoupling the conformations of backbones and side chains in bottlebrush polymers

ACS Spring 2022

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