Hydrated polymer systems, water content

With continuous development of systems for controlled drug release, new materials are being used whose influence on peptide stability must be carefully examined. Thus, the model hexapeptide Val-Tyr-Pro-Asn-Gly-Ala (Fig. 6.30) embedded in poly (vinyl alcohol) and poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) matrices had rates of deamidation that increased with increasing water content or water activity, and, hence, with decreasing glass transition temperature (Tg). However, the degradation behavior in the two polymers differed so that chemical reactivity could not be predicted from water content, water activity, or T% alone. Furthermore, the hexapeptide was less stable in such hydrated polymeric matrices than in aqueous buffer or lyophilized polymer-free powders [132],... 

For the model system considered in Eikerling et al., i the chemical composition and water content are fixed. Only minimal hydration could be considered. A more recently begun work aims explicitly at the understanding of structural correlations and dynamics at acid-functionalized interfaces between polymer and water in PEMs. It directly addresses the question of... 

The water solubility of R-(EO)n types of nonionic emulsifiers is derived from the weak interaction between the ether oxygen of EO unit and water. It was suggested that each EO unit in the PEO chain, requires three molecules of water to form a hydrated complex [35]. This hydrogen bond complex is destroyed if the solution is taken above the melting point of the PEO. Water usually acts as plasticizer when present in hydrophilic PEO polymers and Tg values decrease with increasing water contents [36]. This phenomenon in the PEO-water system is observed up to 1 mol water/ether group. Beyond this a rise in Tg is observed and water acts as an antiplasticizer. 

In this work, we have approaehed the understanding of proton transport with two tasks. In the first task, deseribed above, we have sought to identify the moleeular-level stmeture of PFSA membranes and their relevant interfaees as a funetion of water content and polymer architecture. In the second task, described in this Section, we explain our efforts to model and quantify proton transport in these membranes and interfaces and their dependence on water content and polymer architecture. As in the task I, the tool employed is molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. A non-reactive algorithm is sufficient to generate the morphology of the membrane and its interfaces. It is also capable of providing some information about transport in the system such as diffusivities of water and the vehicular component of the proton diffusivity. Moreover, analysis of the hydration of hydronium ion provides indirect information about the structural component of proton diffusion, but a direct measure of the total proton diffusivity is beyond the capabilities of a non-reactive MD simulation. Therefore, in the task II, we develop and implement a reactive molecular dynamics algorithm that will lead to direct measurement of the total proton diffusivity. As the work is an active field, we report the work to date. 

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