Thermal Field-Flow Fractionation for Characterization of Architecture in Hyperbranched Aromatic-Aliphatic Polyesters with Controlled Branching

Abstract

Thermal field-flow fractionation (ThFFF) was used to characterize the architecture of aromatic–aliphatic polyesters with varying degrees of branching. Thermal diffusion and Soret coefficients (DT and ST, respectively) provide a novel route to polymer architecture analysis. This paper demonstrates an innovative strategy to extract architecture information from the physicochemical separation parameters embedded in ThFFF retention times without explicit separation of linear and branched samples. A Soret contraction factor (g″), defined as the ratio of the ST of a branched polymer to the ST of a molecular weight equivalent linear analogue, is introduced as a metric to indicate degree of branching (DB). This approach circumvents several challenges associated with the analysis of high molar mass polymers with a high degree of branching. The g″ value is shown to be proportional to the degree of branching for linear (DB, 0%), gradually branched (DB, <50%), hyperbranched (DB, 50%), and pseudodendritic (DB, 100%) polyesters allowing the establishment of architecture calibration curves. Furthermore, positive log(g″) values (∼0.2) at low molar mass are attributed to cyclic subpopulations. This work demonstrates the usefulness of the Soret contraction factor for statistically and hyperbranched polymer systems and its sensitivity to cyclic polymers.