Phenyl group rotation in polystyrene and the nature of twofold anisotropic internal rotation

Abstract

AbstractA review of the experimental evidence for phenyl group rotation in various polystyrenes and improvements in the interpretation of spin relaxation data for dilute solutions of randomly coiled polymers led to a new calculation of the correlation time for phenyl group rotation from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) data. Both 13C and 19F NMR data were reconsidered by using a model which includes motional modulation of the dipole–dipole interaction by overall rotatory diffusion, backbone rearrangements, and internal anisotropic rotation. The choice of a twofold potential to characterize local resistance to internal phenyl group rotation strongly influences the estimate of the rate of phenyl group rotation. The magnetic resonance data are found to be consistent with a correlation time for phenyl group rotation which is one to six times longer than the average correlation time for backbone rearrangement.