Association and surface properties of diblock copolymers of ethylene oxide and DL-lactide in aqueous solution

✍ Scribed by Siriporn Tanodekaew; Rachpal Pannu; Frank Heatley; David Attwood; Colin Booth

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 888 KB
• Volume: 198
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1022-1352
• DOI: 10.1002/macp.1997.021980402

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Diblock copolymers of ethylene oxide and DL‐lactide (E~m~L~n~ copolymers) were prepared by sequential anionic polymerisation and characterised by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and ^13^C NMR. Their association and surface properties in aqueous solution were studied by surface tension and dynamic and static light scattering. Comparison of the critical micelle concentrations (cmc) and micelle association numbers (N~w~) of the E~m~L~n~ copolymers with published values for oxyethylene/oxybutylene (E~m~B~n~) copolymers indicated a slightly lower hydrophobicity for a lactide unit: i.e. L ≃ 0.75B. The temperature dependence of the cmc of copolymer E~42~L~12~ was analysed to obtain a standard enthalpy of micellisation Δ~mic~H^0^ ≈ 40 kJ · mol^−1^.