Understanding the lower critical solution temperature of amphiphilic synthetic polymers in water: the role of conformation and hydration

DOI

The thermoresponsiveness of polymer-based soft materials opens perspectives in many applicative fields. This property in hydrated systems has the simple origin of a reversible de-mixing across a lower critical solution temperature, and has been explored for several chemically different amphiphilic polymers, each of them with specific critical conditions and phase behaviours. This work investigates for the first time by extensive atomistic molecular dynamics simulations the temperature dependence of the infinitely diluted aqueous solution of two such thermoresponsive macromolecules, poly(N-isopropyl-methacrylamide), PNIPMAM, and poly(2-isopropyl-2-oxazoline), PIPOX, in comparison to poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), PNIPAM, the much-more studied prototype system for polymers exhibiting a lower consolute boundary in water. The evolution of conformation and hydration water of the macromolecules is detected in a temperature range from well-below to well-above the transition temperature, with a favourable comparison to available experimental data. The resulting molecular description provides an explanation for deviations in solution properties of these macromolecules, including the effect of chaotropic anions and of solvent isotopic composition on the value of the lower critical solution temperature and the transition enthalpy. Overall, simulation findings show how the trade-off between gain in translational entropy of water molecules, associated with the reduction in solvent-excluded volume during the transition, and polymer-specific conformational features, determines the temperature response of these macromolecules in aqueous solution. In light of this molecular characterisation, a correlation between the single chain behaviour across the transition and the type I or type II phase diagram of the polymer aqueous solution can be postulated.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:4c-3c
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2025.127646
Related Identifier https://archive.materialscloud.org/communities/mcarchive
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:p6-7f
Metadata Access https://archive.materialscloud.org/oai2d?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai:materialscloud.org:2691
Provenance
Creator Tavagnacco, Letizia; Del Galdo, Sara; Galli, Andrea; Capone, Barbara; Zaccarelli, Emanuela; Chiessi, Ester
Publisher Materials Cloud
Contributor Tavagnacco, Letizia; Del Galdo, Sara; Chiessi, Ester
Publication Year 2025
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
OpenAccess true
Contact archive(at)materialscloud.org
Representation
Language English
Resource Type info:eu-repo/semantics/other
Format application/zip; text/markdown
Discipline Materials Science and Engineering