1 research outputs found
Copolymerization on Selective Substrates: Experimental Test and Computer Simulations
We
explore the influence of a selective substrate on the composition
and sequence statistics during the free radical copolymerization.
In particular, we study the radical copolymerization of styrene and
acrylic acid in bulk and in silica pores of different sizes. We show
that the substrate affects both polymer composition and sequence statistics.
We use dissipative particle dynamics simulations to study the polymerization
process in detail, trying to pinpoint the parameters responsible for
the observed differences in the polymer chain composition and sequences.
The magnitude of the observed effect depends on the fraction of adsorbed
monomer units, which cannot be described in the framework of the copolymerization
theories based on the terminal unit model