Supramolecular assemblies driven by hydrogen bonding in water
Marion THARCIS a, Laurent BOUTEILLER a,*, Thomas BREINER b
a
Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères, CNRS UMR 7610, UPMC,
T 44-54, 1er étage, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris cedex 05, France;
b Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS), BASF SE,
8 allée Gaspard Monge, F-67083 Strasbourg, France
laurent.bouteiller@upmc.fr
Water-soluble polymers are widely used for their thickening properties in aqueous media
and their gelling abilities have been increased by the development of water-soluble
associative polymers 1-2. Most of these systems are obtained by introducing a small
amount of hydrophobic moieties along the hydrophilic chain like for HEUR (Hydrophobic
Ethoxylated Urethanes) 3 which form a transient network structure in aqueous solution due
to intermolecular hydrophobic associations. More recently, with the growing interest in
supramolecular chemistry, some small organic molecules have shown thickening
properties in water 4. Indeed, these molecules self-assemble together by non covalent
interactions (hydrogen bonding, ionic interaction, coordination bonding…) to build an
organized structure which eventually leads to a gel.
Our strategy consists in combining both approaches: we have introduced hydrogen
bonding groups in amphiphilic polymers to improve their self-association. In particular, we
have shown that the presence of hydrogen bonding units favors the formation of highly
anisotropic structures 5.
We will present the synthesis and characterizations (viscosity measurements, SANS, light
scattering, cryo-TEM) of new associative polymers taking advantage of supramolecular
interactions to create physical networks based on H-bonds in water.
Figure 1: Cryo-TEM picture of a 0,25%wt.solution of
a bis-urea molecule in water
1.
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3. V. S. Kadam, M. V. Badiger, P.P. Wadgaonkar, G. Ducouret, D. Hourdet, Polymer 2008, 49(21), 4635-4646
4. L. A. Estroff, A. D. Hamilton, Chem. Rev. 2004, 104, 1201-1217
5. E. Obert, M. Bellot, L. Bouteiller, F. Andrioletti, C. Lehen-Ferrenbach, F. Boue, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2007,
129, 15601-15605
2.