Eur. Phys. J. E (2013) 36: 37
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2013-13037-8

Regular Article

Thermo-reversible gelation of atactic poly(methyl methacrylate) in poly(ethylene glycol) oligomers

¹⁹⁸⁵¹ Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, The State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Nanjing University, 210093, Nanjing, P.R. China
²⁹⁸⁵¹ College of Wood Science and Technology, Nanjing Forestry University, 210037, Nanjing, P.R. China

^* e-mail: dzhou@nju.edu.cn
^** e-mail: xuegi@nju.edu.cn

Received: 30 October 2012
Revised: 6 February 2013
Accepted: 11 March 2013
Published online: 19 April 2013

Abstract

The temperature-concentration behavior of physical gel by atactic poly(methyl methacrylate) (aPMMA) in poly(ethylene glycol) oligomer (PEG400) was investigated. A liquid-liquid demixing interferes with a glass transition during cooling. The combination of demixing and T _g leads to the formation of amorphous gels at low temperature. We suggest that the gelation of aPMMA/PEG400 is a glassy gel, in which short-range attractive depletion interaction in the polymer/oligomer system was the driving force at molecular level.