Abstract
Inverse gas chromatography (IGC) was applied to amphiphilic graft copolymers of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) with polystyrene (PSt) branches using various probes at 160°C. Retention of tetradecane or amylbenzene, which selectively interacts only with PSt phase, suggested that a microphase inversion occurs around 20—30 wt% PSt, below which PSt segments constitute a discontinuous phase (islands). Rather nonselective probes such as dimethyl-formamide and 2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethanol showed a retention which exceeds that expected from a simple additive relation, suggesting a considerable contribution of their interaction with the interface of the microphase-separated domains. In contrast, random copolymers showed a retention behavior as expected for a statistical distribution of the monomer units. General discussion is given on IGC as a means of characterizing binary polymer systems.
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