| Research Abstract |
In polymeric systems interacting among chains by the hydrophobic interaction, hydrogen bonding, ion-pair interaction, etc, polymer assemblies are formed and the assemblies crucially affect various properties and play a major role in their functions. However, the method for characterizing their structure and association-dissociation behavior has not been established yet. The present research project was undertaken to establish this methodology. For this purpose, we have studied various polymer assembly systems, extracted common problems in their assembly characterization, and constructed the theoretical basis for the data analyses. We have investigated (1) polymer living anions, (2) hydrophobically modified telechelic polymer, (3) amphiphilic block copolymer, (4) amphiphilic random copolymers, (5) polyacid-polybase complex, (6) thermally denatured double helical polysaccharide, (7) thermally denatured globular protein, (8) globular protein-ionic polysaccharide mixture, and (9) πconjugated polymer. Their structural analyses and characterizations of association-dissociation behavior have been made by using the star micelle model for the system (1), the bouquet (randomly associating flower micelles) model for the system (2), the spherical and vesicle models for the system (3), the flower model for the system (4), random aggregate model for the systems (5) to (8), and multiple helical aggregate model for the system (9). Experimental methods applied were static and dynamic light scattering, sedimentation equilibrium, fluorescence, and viscometry.
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