(The) study of conformational properties of isotactic poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) and thermodynamic properties of magnetized water

Abstract

In part I, conformational properties of isotactic poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate)(PHEMA) have been studied in mixtures of water and several aliphatic alcohols by viscometry and fluorometry. The highest fluorescence intensity of auramine has been detected in aqueous isotactic PHEMA solution compared with several aliphatic systems. Upon aliphatic alcohol addition, there was the decrease of fluorescence intensity of auramine. As the number of aliphatic group of alcohol increase, the decrease of fluorescence intensity of auramine has been pronounced. And the sharp increase of the reduced viscosity of isotactic PHEMA in water-alcohol solvents were observed in the lower region of alcohol volume percentage with the increasing number of aliphatic group of alcohol. Nevertheless, the sharp increase of the reduced viscosity of isotactic PHEMA in ethyleneglycol-water solvent was obtained even at a low volume percentage region of ethyleneglycol at which compact structures exist. Therefore, we consider that the increase of viscosity at this region is due to the hydrophilic side group of polymersolvent interaction, forming hydrogen bonds. The experimental results suggest that compact structures of isotactic PHEMA in aqueous solution are caused by hydrophobic interactions by methyl group of polymer backbone, and the transition of isotactic PHEMA from compact coil to highly extended coil is due to breakdown of hydrophobic interaction by adding alcohols. Finally, our study brings the fact that the solvating sites of alcohols on the isotactic PHEMA molecule are strongly influenced by the number of hydroxyl and aliphatic group in alcohols. In part II, conformational properties of isotactic PHEMA have been studied by viscometry in various electrolytic solutions. The intrinsic viscosity of isotactic PHEMA at 0.01M salt solution increases with decreasing the B-coefficient in Jones-Dole``s equation. In respective to water structures, a polymer chain is more expanded in the salt solu...