Star-shaped architecture measurement

As far as water/toluene interfacial tension is measured, it appears that the saturation of the interface is reached more quickly with PTBS (P0)2 star-shaped block copolymers (Table VII) this molecular architecture seems to be more efficient to fill in the interface (3 0 ... 

The branched architecture has great influence on the packing of molecular chains. In general, dendrimers have smaller hydrodynamic radius and the melt and solution viscosity of a hyperbranched polymer is expected to be lower than that of a parent linear polymer. Viscosity measurements performed with a cone viscometer confirmed the decrease of viscosity of star-shape polymers compared to the respective high molecular weight arms (polymers B-R-4 and C-R-4, Tables 1 and 2). This observation is consistent with the decrease of hydrodynamic volume observed for... 

Discriminating branched and star polymers from linear ones can always be achieved by measuring the properties in dilute solution. In fact, molecules having the same molar mass but different macromolecular architectures exhibit different transport and light scattering properties. More specifically, a branched macromolecule is more compact than a linear molecule having the same molar mass, and therefore it will display less friction and will diffuse more easily in the solvent. Viscometry can be used to detect branched structures, since the Mark-Houwink-Sakurada exponent (Eq. 2.23) for branched and star-shaped polymers is lower tiian that for the corresponding linear chain. Unfortunately, in order to measure the difference, one must have a sample made exclusively... 

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