Rheological properties of polybutadienes prepared by n‐butyllithium initiation

Abstract

AbstractThe flow behavior of n‐butyllithium‐polymerized polybutadienes was investigated as a function of molecular weight, temperature, and shear rate. At low shear rates these polymers exhibit Newtonian flow up to molecular weights of several hundred thousand so that “zero shear” Newtonian viscosities can readily be determined without the risk of long extrapolation. Above 10,000 molecular weight the Newtonian viscosities obey the well‐known 3.4 power dependence on weight‐average molecular weight. The entanglement spacing molecular weight is estimated at 5600. The temperature dependence of viscosity is substantially independent of molecular weight and shear stress and can be represented analytically by functions proposed in the literature. The apparent activation energy for viscous flow is not constant, but decreases with rising temperature. The flow of the polymers becomes increasingly non‐Newtonian with the product of shear rate, molecular weight and Newtonian viscosity. However, the departure from Newtonian behavior is apparently less than for any polymer system whose flow behavior has been described in the literature. The indications are, therefore, that sharp molecular weight distribution and freedom from long chain branching favor Newtonian flow and that the n‐butyllithium initiated polybutadienes represent some of the most perfectly linear, narrow distribution polymers known.