%0 Journal Article
%A König, Nico
%A Willner, Lutz
%A Pipich, Vitaliy
%A Mahmoudi, Najet
%A Lund, Reidar
%T Tale of Two Tails: Molecular Exchange Kinetics of Telechelic Polymer Micelles
%J Physical review letters
%V 124
%N 19
%@ 1079-7114
%C College Park, Md.
%I APS
%M FZJ-2020-02178
%P 197801
%D 2020
%X Telechelic polymers contain two chain ends that are able to promote self-assembly into “flowerlike” or interconnected micellar structures. Here, we investigate the molecular exchange kinetics of such micelles using time-resolved small-angle neutron scattering. We show that the activation energies of monofunctional and telechelic chain exchange are identical. This demonstrates that the two chain ends are not simultaneously released in a single event. Instead, the results show that, contrary to regular micelles, the kinetics occurs in a multistep process involving a collision-induced single-molecule exchange mechanism where the exchange rate is directly proportional to the polymer concentration. We show that this novel mechanism can be quantitatively explained by a simple kinetic model.
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)16
%9 Journal Article
%$ pmid:32469600
%U <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000533164500011
%R 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.197801
%U https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/877415