John E. Stark

Morphological Investigation of Polytetba-Methyleneoxide-Dibbomoxylene Segmented Ionene Polymebs by Tbansmission Electbon Micboscopy and Small-Angle X-Ray Scattebing

Abstract A series of segmented ionene polymers with polytetramethyleneoxide (PTMO) soft segments and dibromoxylene hard segments have been studied by small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). As detected by SAXS, these materials display multiple scattering peaks which have not been observed before in ion-containing polymers. For the ionene having the shortest PTMO soft segments, a “rodlike” structure has been observed by TEM, which is in good agreement with the SAXS results. Interestingly, the morphological texture of this material is affected by solution casting even at a very low content of the ionic component (<6.4 vol%). To the authors knowledge, this work represents the first direct observation of domain structure in ionene elastomeric polymers. Based on these data, a tentative morphological model of this ionene system is proposed.