TY  - JOUR
AU  - König, Nico
AU  - Willner, Lutz
AU  - Pipich, Vitaliy
AU  - Mahmoudi, Najet
AU  - Lund, Reidar
TI  - Tale of Two Tails: Molecular Exchange Kinetics of Telechelic Polymer Micelles
JO  - Physical review letters
VL  - 124
IS  - 19
SN  - 1079-7114
CY  - College Park, Md.
PB  - APS
M1  - FZJ-2020-02178
SP  - 197801
PY  - 2020
AB  - 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.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
C6  - pmid:32469600
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000533164500011
DO  - DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.197801
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/877415
ER  -