Thermal and viscoelastic properties of entangled supramolecular polymer networks as a powerful tool for prediction of their microstructure

Abstract Thermal and viscoelastic properties of entangled supramolecular polymer networks, SPNs, depend strongly on binary and collective assembly of associative groups. The collective assemblies can phase separate from polymer matrix chains and form domains with different sizes and shapes, which have different melting point transitions. By increasing content of associative groups along the polymer chains, their high-order association leads to formation of domains, which have higher melting temperatures than other ones. We prepared a SPN system that contains three networks. All networks have similar precursor polymer backbone, but different content of ureidopyrimidinone, UPy, moiety as stro…