Polymer characterization articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Relating the degree of network crosslinking as a descriptor to the desalination performance of crosslinked polymer membranes remains challenging. Here, the authors introduce a parameter based on distinct amide bonds per unit mass of polyamide, to unravel the relationship between the crosslinked networks of polyamide membranes and their desalination performance.

    • Yu-Ren Xue
    • , Chang Liu
    •  & Zhi-Kang Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polymers typically exhibit rheology with multiple relaxation times to fully capture stress relaxation processes to terminal flow. Here, the authors use inverse vulcanization to synthesize polymers that exhibit a single relaxation time due to dynamic covalent disulfide bond reorganization that dominate the rheological properties of these materials.

    • Derek J. Bischoff
    • , Taeheon Lee
    •  & Michael E. Mackay

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Well-defined multicrystalline multiblock polymers are essential model polymers for advancing the physics of crystallization but due to the different chain properties and incompatible synthetic methodologies, multicrystalline multiblock polymers with more than two crystallites are rarely reported. Here the authors combine polyhomologation, ring-opening polymerization and a catalyst switch strategy to synthesize a pentacrystalline pentablock quintopolymer.

    • Pengfei Zhang
    • , Viko Ladelta
    •  & Nikos Hadjichristidis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Materials with tunable modulus, viscosity, and complex viscoelastic spectra are crucial in various applications but it remains challenging to design polymer networks with predicted hierarchical relaxation processes. Here, the authors synthesize networks with both pendant and telechelic architectures using mixed orthogonal dynamic bonds to understand how the network connectivity and bond exchange mechanisms govern the overall relaxation spectrum.

    • Sirui Ge
    • , Yu-Hsuan Tsao
    •  & Christopher M. Evans

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The concept of apparent symmetry rising, opposite to symmetry breaking, was proposed to illustrate the unusual phenomenon that the symmetry of the apparent morphology of the multiply twinned particle is higher than that of its crystal structure. Here the authors develop a strategy of co-crystallization-driven self-assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers and the inorganic clusters to achieve apparent symmetry rising of nanoparticles under mild conditions

    • Siyu Xie
    • , Wenjia Sun
    •  & Jie Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The inclusion of an upper critical solution temperature (UCST) block in multiblock copolymer amphiphiles can enable temperature triggered nanoscale morphological transitions, but there are limited studies probing the actual UCST transition. Here, the authors couple variable temperature liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy and variable temperature liquid resonant soft X-ray scattering to study UCST polymeric nanostructures.

    • Joanna Korpanty
    • , Cheng Wang
    •  & Nathan C. Gianneschi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthetic approaches that employ water to produce functional molecules and polymers with clusteroluminescence properties are highly desirable but not yet reported. Here, the authors apply a water-involved reaction and interfacial polymerization strategy to synthesize nonaromatic molecules and cross-linked polymer films that emit visible light.

    • Bo Song
    • , Jianyu Zhang
    •  & Ben Zhong Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Infrared (IR) transmissive polymeric materials for optical elements require a balance between their optical and thermal properties but achieving simultaneously a high refractive index and IR transparency in the long wavelength infrared region in polymer materials is challenging. Here the authors demonstrate inverse vulcanization of 1,3,5-benzenetrithiol (BTT) to achieve a long wavelength IR transparent material without sacrificing on the thermal properties.

    • Miyeon Lee
    • , Yuna Oh
    •  & Nam-Ho You

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reversals are structural motifs found in helical polymers that are difficult to determine experimentally. Here, the authors turn to photochemical electrocyclization as a tool to establish their presence and estimate excess screw sense in solution.

    • Francisco Rey-Tarrío
    • , Rafael Rodríguez
    •  & Félix Freire

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The macroscopic mechanical response in cross-linked polymer networks has been well investigated but an understanding of pre-failure local mechanical responses at the level of individual crosslinks is still lacking. Here, using an extensophore concept, the authors show that the crosslinks in an elastic polymer network extend, fluctuate, and deform with a wide range of molecular individuality

    • Kaikai Zheng
    • , Yifan Zhang
    •  & Steve Granick

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Living organisms are able to grow structures on their surface for specific applications. Here, the authors report on a force-triggered polymerisation mechanism of double-network hydrogels which allows for the growth of structures on polymer surfaces within seconds and demonstrate the creation of different functionalities.

    • Qifeng Mu
    • , Kunpeng Cui
    •  & Jian Ping Gong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Large mechanical loads usually degrade polymers by accelerating fragmentation of their backbones but rarely, they can cause new backbone bonds to form leading to arrested or reversed degradation when new bonds are formed faster than the original bonds break.Here, the authors report the molecular mechanism and analysis of constructive remodeling driven by the macroradical products of mechanochemical fragmentation of a hydrocarbon backbone.

    • Chenxu Wang
    • , Sergey Akbulatov
    •  & Roman Boulatov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanism of crystal thickness selection in semi-crystalline polymers is unclear but intracrystalline chain diffusion has been shown to have a role. Here, the authors report on observations related to poly(oxymethylene) with slow intra-crystalline chain diffusion to fill the knowledge gaps between fast and absent diffusion systems

    • Martha Schulz
    • , Mareen Schäfer
    •  & Thomas Thurn-Albrecht

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topochemical polymerization reactions produce ultra-high molecular weight crystalline polymers. Here the authors show a family of para-azaquinodimethane compounds that undergo facile visible light and thermally initiated polymerization in the solid state and the crystal structure has been resolved via cryoelectron microscopy.

    • Christopher L. Anderson
    • , He Li
    •  & Yi Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Residual stress in crystalline polymers can lead to material failure, but currently methods which can quantify residual stress in such materials are lacking. Here, by using fluorescent-type mechanochromophores, the authors develop a method to visualize and quantify low degrees of stress that arises from micro-mechanical forces during polymer crystallization.

    • Sota Kato
    • , Shigeki Furukawa
    •  & Hideyuki Otsuka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Self-healing of polymers became a vivid research area, but self-healing under water and its mechanistic concepts are less investigated. Here, the authors report water accelerated self-healing in a pMMA/nBA copolymer and demonstrate that perturbation of ubiquitous van der Walls forces upon mechanical damage in hydrophobic polymers in the presence of water is energetically unfavorable and accelerates self-healing.

    • Dmitriy Davydovich
    •  & Marek W. Urban

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanical degradation of polymers is typically limited to a single chain scission event and the loss of stress transfer during the scission process limits the extent of degradation achieved. Here, the authors report a mechanically triggered, delayed scission strategy that allows many eventual scission events to be initiated within a single polymer chain.

    • Yangju Lin
    • , Tatiana B. Kouznetsova
    •  & Stephen L. Craig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    With the rise in polymer consumption, energy efficient techniques for polymer processing become more important. Using poly(ethylene oxide) aqueous solutions, the authors show that flow can causes a change of polymer solubility resulting in polymer crystallisation at ambient conditions.

    • Gary J. Dunderdale
    • , Sarah J. Davidson
    •  & Oleksandr O. Mykhaylyk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The properties of a polymer are known to be intrinsically related to its molecular weight distribution. Here the authors use a design to synthesis protocol for producing a targeted molecular weight distribution with a computer controlled tubular flow reactor.

    • Dylan J. Walsh
    • , Devin A. Schinski
    •  & Damien Guironnet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    One of the fundamental laws in crystallization is translational symmetry but breaking translational symmetry can be used as a general route towards the design of nanostructures. Here the authors show that overcrowding in molecular bottlebrush polymers allows for spontaneous formation of spherical hollow crystals with broken translational symmetry.

    • Hao Qi
    • , Xiting Liu
    •  & Christopher Y. Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Resin-based-composites are widely used in industry and medicine but the influence of the filler particles on the reactive group conversion in photocurable resins is yet to be elucidated. Here the authors observe reduced local conversion and chemical bond strain in silica filler acrylate composite using synchrotron-based wide-field IR imaging.

    • Slobodan Sirovica
    • , Johanne H. Solheim
    •  & Owen Addison

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bio‐based compounds often suffer from high production cost and low performance when used to synthesise macromolecules. Here the authors show the conversion of (+)‐3‐ carene, a by‐product of the cellulose industry, into its ε‐lactams and then to polyamides with high‐performance thermal properties.

    • Paul N. Stockmann
    • , Daniel Van Opdenbosch
    •  & Volker Sieber

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-induced alteration of macromolecular information plays a central role in biology and is known to influence health and aging. Here the authors show that light can trigger sequence variations in abiotic information-containing polymers that possess photo-sensitive monomers

    • Niklas Felix König
    • , Abdelaziz Al Ouahabi
    •  & Jean-François Lutz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the functional group distribution in a polymer chain has been difficult, but this information can be very useful. Here the authors visualize the monomer distribution in individual polymer chains by combining experimental and theoretical analysis of the construction of functionality-chain length distributions.

    • Paul H. M. Van Steenberge
    • , Ondrej Sedlacek
    •  & Dagmar R. D’hooge

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biodegradable plastics usually have poorer mechanical or transport properties compared to conventional plastics. Here the authors show a class of biorenewable and chemically recyclable plastics based on copolymers of γ-butyrolactone and its ring-fused derivative, with competitive properties compared to conventional plastics.

    • Ainara Sangroniz
    • , Jian-Bo Zhu
    •  & Haritz Sardon

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Detecting and understanding the topology freezing transition temperature of vitrimers has been very limited in the past. Here the authors use a sensitive and universal method by doping or swelling aggregation-induced-emission luminogens into vitrimers as probes to monitor the topology freezing transition temperature

    • Yang Yang
    • , Shuai Zhang
    •  & Yan Ji

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Digital polymers with precisely ordered units for next-generation data storage media are continually investigated for higher storage capacity. Here the authors show the synthesis of information-coded 2D digital dendrimers and the generated data matrix barcode can be read by a common hand-held device.

    • Zhihao Huang
    • , Qiunan Shi
    •  & Xiulin Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the dynamics of ring polymers is challenging are despite recent progress, understanding of the nonequilibrium behavior of ring polymers has not yet been achieved. Here, the authors directly observe the flow dynamics of DNA-based rings in semidilute linear polymer solutions using single molecule techniques.

    • Yuecheng Zhou
    • , Kai-Wen Hsiao
    •  & Charles M. Schroeder

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ferroelectric polymers are key building blocks for flexible electronic devices, but lack functionality and ability to tune their ferroelectric response. Here the authors show a method to introduce functionality in ferroelectric polymers while preserving ferroelectricity and tune the ferroelectric response by incorporating insulating polymer chains.

    • Ivan Terzic
    • , Niels L. Meereboer
    •  & Katja Loos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cyclic polymers can be usually accessed by ring-expansion and ring-closure approaches. Here, the authors report an alternative blocking-cyclization technique which enables the tunable synthesis of multicyclic polymers via commercial Ru-based Grubbs catalysts and conventional ring-opening metathesis polymerisation.

    • Jie Chen
    • , Hongfei Li
    •  & Meiran Xie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Bacterial infections and antibiotic resistance are an increasing concern for the world. Here the authors report a class of cationic antimicrobial polymers that cluster local facial amphiphilicity from repeating units to enhance interactions with bacterial membranes without requiring a high unfavorable entropic loss.

    • Md Anisur Rahman
    • , Marpe Bam
    •  & Chuanbing Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Superchiral light can be utilized to promote asymmetric photochemical reactions. Here the authors show that superchiral light imparts greater chiral bias to trigger asymmetric photo-polymerization reactions from initially achiral diacetylene monomers and enhanced optical dissymmetry in polydiacetylene films.

    • Chenlu He
    • , Guang Yang
    •  & Gang Zou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polymer dynamics at entangled conditions has generally been simplified as motions governed by the two ends of each polymer chain. Abadi et al. characterize linear and cyclic dsDNA molecules with high resolution, revealing position-dependent chain motions which cannot be described by the reptation theory.

    • Maram Abadi
    • , Maged F. Serag
    •  & Satoshi Habuchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    High-conductivity solid-state electrolyte materials with minimal polarization loss are difficult to synthesize. Here the authors show single-ion block copolymers with crystalline protogenic channels having a promising potential to be used as efficient proton conductors.

    • Onnuri Kim
    • , Kyoungwook Kim
    •  & Moon Jeong Park

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Polyelectrolytes are a class of macromolecules containing charged groups. Here the authors review properties and functions of metallo-polyelectrolytes to shed light on how to harness fundamental physiochemical properties for applications in biomedical sciences and advanced materials.

    • Tianyu Zhu
    • , Ye Sha
    •  & Chuanbing Tang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Translocation of larger molecules through graphene holds potential for molecular sieving, however it is rarely observed. Here, the authors show the radical polymerization of vinyl monomers via their translocation through a single layer graphene to a monolayer initiator and additionally study the monomer-graphene interactions.

    • Tao Zhang
    • , Zhongquan Liao
    •  & Rainer Jordan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Energy conversion of light into mechanical work is of fundamental interest for a wide range of applications, but the development of efficient light responsive polymers is challenging. Here the authors demonstrate photoswitchable  glass transition temperatures contribute to the photomechanical bending in a crosslinked azobenzene polymer.

    • Youfeng Yue
    • , Yasuo Norikane
    •  & Emiko Koyama

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing large-scale flexible display technologies calls for new gate dielectric materials balancing the insulating property and molecular packing of organic semiconductors. Ji et al. synthesize a dielectric copolymer contributing with charge mobility of 5 cm2 V−1 s−1 and low operating voltage of 3 V.

    • Deyang Ji
    • , Tao Li
    •  & Wenping Hu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Polymer binders in battery electrodes can affect their performance, however design rules are still lacking. Here, the authors reveal why polyelectrolyte binders outperform charge-neutral alternatives in lithium–sulfur batteries, showing how cationic polyelectrolytes can regulate ion transport selectively.

    • Longjun Li
    • , Tod A. Pascal
    •  & Brett A. Helms

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Barbier reaction, a widely utilized reaction for carbon–carbon bond formation, has played important roles in modern organic chemistry. Here, the authors show a one-pot Barbier polyaddition reaction of monomers containing an organic halide and a benzoyl group to form a series of phenylmethanol group containing polymers.

    • Xiao-Li Sun
    • , Dong-Ming Liu
    •  & Wen-Ming Wan

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