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This review concerns modeling studies of the fundamental problem of entangled (reptational) homopolymer diffusion in melts and nanocomposite materials in comparison to experiments. In polymer melts, the developed united atom and multibead spring models predict an exponent of the molecular weight dependence to the polymer diffusion very similar to experiments and the tube reptation model. There are rather unexplored parameters that can influence polymer diffusion such as polymer semiflexibility or polydispersity, leading to a different exponent. Models with soft potentials or slip-springs can estimate accurately the tube model predictions in polymer melts enabling us to reach larger length scales and simulate well entangled polymers. However, in polymer nanocomposites, reptational polymer diffusion is more complicated due to nanoparticle fillers size, loading, geometry and polymer-nanoparticle interactions.
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Trends in polymer physics and theory
We present our personal appraisal of a few recent trends in polymer physics and theory. The four main themes discussed are crystallization and melting of polymers, memory in polymer systems, topologically frustrated polymer dynamics, and phase behavior of polyelectrolyte solutions.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1713696
- PAR ID:
- 10498933
- Publisher / Repository:
- Elsevier
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Progress in Polymer Science
- Volume:
- 100
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 0079-6700
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 101184
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progpolymsci.2019.101184
