Nanoporous Structure of Semirigid Alternating Copolymers via Nitrogen Sorption and Molecular Simulation

X Zhou and Y Li and KE Hart and LJ Abbott and ZX Lin and F Svec and CM Colina and SR Turner, MACROMOLECULES, 46, 5968-5973 (2013).

DOI: 10.1021/ma4006582

Surface area and porosity of a series of semirigid alternating copolymers consisting of tert-butyl carboxylate-functionalized stilbene or tert-butyl carboxylate-functionalized styrene and maleic anhydride or tert-butyl carboxylate-functionalized N-phenylmaleimide were investigated using nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms at 77 K and atomistic molecular simulations. Surface areas from experiments using the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) theory and geometric surface areas of molecular simulations show good correlation. It is shown here that the stilbene copolymers have higher surface areas than their styrene analogues. It is also found that BET surface areas increase as the persistence length (chain stiffness) increases for these alternating copolymers.

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