THE AGGREGATION STRUCTURE OF CARBOXYLATED POLY(2,6-DIMETHYL-1,4-PHENYLENE OXIDE) IONOMER

The aggregation structure of carboxylated poly(2,6-dimethyl 1,4-phenylene oxide) (CPPO) ionomer has been studied with DSC, dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA), WAXD and SAXS techniques. The results of DSC predict that there exist a critical concentration for CPPO ionomer, and Tg increases dramatically up to cation concentration of 5mol%. A relaxation peak corresponding to the relaxation of ionic microphase structure appears beyond the Tg region by DMTA measurement. SAXS provided a powerful evidence that there exists ionic clusters in CPPO ionomer, and the dimension of these ionic microphase domains are about 30 A which is independent of the cation concentration.