Rheology of ring polymer melts: From linear contaminants to ring-linear blends

Jonathan D. Halverson, Gary S. Grest, Alexander Y. Grosberg, Kurt Kremer

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Ring polymers remain a challenge to our understanding of polymer dynamics. Experiments are difficult to interpret because of the uncertainty in the purity and dispersity of the sample. Using both equilibrium and nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations we have investigated the structure, dynamics, and rheology of perfectly controlled ring-linear polymer blends of chains of up to about 14 entanglements per chain, comparable to experimental systems. Linear contaminants increase the zero-shear viscosity of a ring polymer melt by about 10% around one-fifth of their overlap concentration. For equal concentrations of linear and ring polymers, the blend viscosity is about twice that of the pure linear melt. The diffusion coefficient of the rings decreases dramatically, while the linear polymers are mostly unaffected. Our results are supported by a primitive path analysis.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Article number038301
    JournalPhysical Review Letters
    Volume108
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Jan 18 2012

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Physics and Astronomy

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Rheology of ring polymer melts: From linear contaminants to ring-linear blends'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this