Molecular thermodynamics approach on phase equilibria of dendritic polymer systems

Abstract

We suggest a molecular thermodynamic framework to describe the phase behavior of dendritic polymer systems. The proposed model, which is based on the lattice cluster theory, contains correlations of molecular structure and specific interactions such as hydrogen bonding to the phase equilibria of branch-structured polymer systems. We examine liquid-liquid equilibria (LLE) of hyperbranched polymer solutions and vapor-liquid equilibria (VLE) of dendrimer solutions in the viewpoints of effects of a branched structure and specific interaction formations among endgroups of dendritic polymer and solvent molecules. We investigate VLE of dendrimer/solvent (Benzyl Ether Dendrimer/Toluene) systems by the combination of a new lattice-based model and atomistic simulation technique. The interaction energy parameters are obtained by the pairs method (Baschnagel et al., 1991) including Monte Carlo sim- ulation with excluded volume constraint. In the pairs method (Baschnagel et al., 1991), we do not simulate the whole molecule as in molecular dynamics or molecular mechanics, but only monomer segments interacting with solvent mol- ecules. The proposed model shows improvements in prediction for both phase equilibria (VLE and LLE) due to the branched structure and specific interaction due to endgroups at periphery of dendritic polymer molecule. Atomic sim- ulation technique gives good result in prediction without fitting variables. Our results show that the specific interactions between the endgroup and the solvent molecule play an important role in phase behavior of the given systems.