Regensburg 2019 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 40: Modeling and Simulation of Soft Matter I (joint session CPP/DY)
CPP 40.8: Talk
Wednesday, April 3, 2019, 16:45–17:00, H18
Mixtures of Dendrimers and Linear Polymers — •Martin Wengenmayr1,2, Ron Dockhorn1, and Jens-Uwe Sommer1,2 — 1Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research, Dresden, Germany — 2TU Dresden, Germany
One of the largely unsolved problems in polymer science is the effect of polymer architecture on the thermodynamics and functional properties of a polymer system. In particular, there is no commonly accepted explanation for the conformation properties of branched polymers immersed in a melt of chemically identical linear polymers. Based on Monte Carlo simulations of dendrimers with various generations and spacer lengths immersed in a solution of polymer chains of different degree of polymerization and concentrations we show that flexible dendrimers do not collapse into a compact globule as the concentration of linear chains is increased. Instead, we observe a crowded state distinct from athermal or theta solvent state. Beside the nontrivial conformational changes of the dendrimer the mixing of polymers of the same chemical composition but different branching induces secondary interactions between the species. Our work addresses the question of the strength of the secondary interactions in terms of intermolecular interactions and depletion attraction.