Structure and rheology of aqueous micellar solutions and gels formed from an associative poly(oxybutylene)–poly(oxyethylene)–poly(oxybutylene) triblock copolymer

Abstract

The structure and shear flow behaviour of aqueous micellar solutions and gels formed by an amphiphilic poly(oxybutylene)–poly(oxyethylene)–poly(oxybutylene) triblock copolymer with a lengthy hydrophilic poly(oxyethylene) block has been investigated by rheology, small angle neutron scattering (SANS) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). SANS revealed that bridging of chains between micelles introduces, in the micellar solution, an attractive long-range component which can be described through a potential of interaction corresponding to sticky soft spheres. The strength of the attractive interaction increases with increasing concentration. Rheology showed that the dependence of the storage modulus with temperature can be explained as a function of the micellar bridging, micellisation and phase morphology. SAXS studies showed that the orientation adopted by the system in the gel phase under shear is similar to that previously observed by us for the gel phase of a poly(oxyethylene)–poly(oxybutylene) diblock copolymer with a long poly(oxyethylene) chain, suggesting that the micellar corona/core length ratio and not the architecture of the block copolymer influences the alignment of the gel phase under shear.