Volume Phase Transition of Stimuli-Responsive Polymers: An Investigation via Mueller Matrix Polarimetry

Narayanan, Amal (2015) Volume Phase Transition of Stimuli-Responsive Polymers: An Investigation via Mueller Matrix Polarimetry. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata.

PDF (MS dissertation of Amal Narayanan (10MS66)) Amal_Narayanan_10MS66_MS_Thesis.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (1MB)

Abstract

Even after the tremendous growth in the field of stimuli-responsive polymers, quantification of micro and macroscopical phase separation behavior exhibited by these „smart‟ polymers remains as a challenge. Herein we demonstrated the ability of an in-house developed Mueller matrix polarimeter (MMP) to probe the volume phase transition displayed by polymers. The inverse analysis with polar decomposition method provided a platform to analyze phase transition behavior in terms of depolarization (⊿), diattenuation (d), and linear retardance (δ). The required amount of polymer for quantifying the phase transition behavior of polymer was found to be a few hundred times lower than that of the present methodology for cloud point analysis. After understanding the tremendous capability of MMP, we then explored the concentration induced cloud point shift (CICPS) behavior of stimuli-polymers. Interestingly, we found that the phase transition behavior encoded from ⊿ values found to display CICPS behavior whereas the d and δ values derived phase transition behavior did not show CICPS. Additionally, we were able to observe the two step action (disruption of the polymer hydration shell and polymer-polymer aggregation) of cloud point generation at super-dilute polymer concentration.

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