Field-theoretical approach to a dense polymer with an ideal binary mixture of clustering centers

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2011 Jul;84(1 Pt 1):011808. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.84.011808. Epub 2011 Jul 29.

Abstract

We propose a field-theoretical approach to a polymer system immersed in an ideal mixture of clustering centers. The system contains several species of these clustering centers with different functionality, each of which connects a fixed number segments of the chain to each other. The field theory is solved using the saddle point approximation and evaluated for dense polymer melts using the random phase approximation. We find a short-ranged effective intersegment interaction with strength dependent on the average segment density and discuss the structure factor within this approximation. We also determine the fractions of linkers of the different functionalities.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Cluster Analysis
  • Cross-Linking Reagents / chemistry
  • Fourier Analysis
  • Micelles
  • Models, Statistical
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Normal Distribution
  • Physics / methods*
  • Polymers / chemistry*
  • Thermodynamics

Substances

  • Cross-Linking Reagents
  • Micelles
  • Polymers