title: Behavior of hydrophobic polyelectrolyte solution in mixed aqueous/organic solvents revealed by neutron scattering and viscosimetry.
abstract: We investigate in this paper the influence of the improvement of the solvent quality on the structure and the viscous properties of solutions of an hydrophobic polyelectrolyte, poly(styrene-co-sodium styrenesulfonate): PSS. The solvent used is a mixture of water and an organic solvent, THF, which is also slightly polar. We use small angle neutron scattering in the semidilute regime and viscosimetry as a function of concentration in dilute and semidilute unentangled regime. The structure, namely the scattering from all chains, is characterized by a maximum ("polyelectrolyte peak"). Its position and amplitude depends, at a given sulfonation rate of PSS, on the solvent quality through the added amount of organic solvent (THF). These evolutions with the THF amount are more pronounced when the sulfonation rate f is low (more hydrophobic polyelectrolyte) and the amount of added THF is high. Adding THF to hydrophobic PSS (f = 0.50 or f = 0.38), diminishes also the "shoulder" visible in the log I - log q plot and associated with the pearl size. It is therefore proposed that when THF is added to aqueous polyelectrolyte solutions, the pearls are dissolved and the chain conformation evolves from the pearl-necklace shape already reported in pure water toward the string-like conformation in pure water for fully sulfonated PSS. An addition of THF also reduces the important low q upturn found with hydrophobic polyelectrolyte solutions: the large aggregates are dissolved by THF. The upturn can become for PSSNa f = 0.38, after adding enough THF (50%), even smaller than that for the charged hydrophilic case PSSNa f = 0.82, in water. This can mean that in the quasi-fully charged PSS at f = 0.82 there are still hydrophobic effects in water, which is disagreeing with our recent reports, or that the electrostatics contribution to the upturn is reduced due to a lower dielectric permittivity. Concerning the hydrophilic polyelectrolyte, poly(sodium-2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonate)-co-(acrylamide): AMAMPS, no evolution in structure occurs until 25% THF. The viscosimetry variation with THF fraction is in good agreement with the scattering one up to 25%: though little dependent on THF for AMAMPS, and for hydrophilic PSSNa, it increases for hydrophobic PSSNa in agreement with the chain expansion signaled by scattering. At 50% THF concentration, the hydrophilic polyelectrolyte shows new surprising behaviors: the scattering of PSSNa is no longer characteristic of polyelectrolytes, and AMAMPS solutions display an unexpected viscosity decrease.
authors.affiliation: Institut National de Recherche et d'Analyse Physico-Chimique, Pôle Technologique de Sidi Thabet, 2020 Sidi Thabet-Tunisie. essafi.wafa@inrap.rnrt.tn
authors.forename: Wafa
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Essafi
authors.forename: Amira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Abdelli
authors.forename: Gada
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bouajila
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Boué