Mitigating Early Phase Separation of Aliphatic Random Ionomers by the Hydrophobic H-Bond Acceptor Addition

This study reports a new phenomenon whereby the ionic content of random ionomer was increased by introduction hydrophobic modifier. In current study, synthesized from solution polymerization three vinyl monomers, which are polar monomers acrylonitrile (AN), glycidyl methacrylate (GMA), and monomer potassium 3-sulfopropyl (SPM), encountered an early phase separation problem when exceeded certain threshold value. However, addition strongly monomer, 2,2,3,3-tetrafluoropropyl (TFPM), during copolymerization is able to restrain this trend, consequently allowing 50% more SPM units be incorporated uniformly distributed in achieving copolymer chain. The clustering units, cause for separation, reduced as result. resulting demonstrated superior proton conducting material over its ternary originator. due fact that TFPM possesses acidic protons, brings about association with GMA via hydrogen bonding. could impact synthesis ionomers free radical since monitoring improving unit distribution issues several industries (e.g., healthcare industry).