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The solvent quality of water for poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) in the collapsed state: Implications from single-molecule studies

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Abstract

Both of temperature (in water) and composition (in the water/methanol mixed solvent) can induce the coil-to-globule transition of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM). The atomic force microscope (AFM) based single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) has been exploited to investigate the interactions between the polymer chain and solvent at the single-molecule level. It is found that the single-chain mechanics of PNIPAM show a remarkable dependence on the two external stimuli. A confusing experimental result is that all the force-extension (F-E) curves of unfolding an individual PNIPAM globule present a feature of elastic (monotonically increasing force) stretching but not plateau (constant force) stretching predicted by theory. In this article, we clarify that the presence of the interior solvent molecules in the single-chain globule is the origin of the discrepancy between the F-E curves obtained from theory and experiment. Although both of the external stimuli do tend to lower the solvent quality for PNIPAM, water and the water/methanol mixed solvent will never be the strongly poor solvent for PNIPAM, even at the worst condition.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials (Ministry of Education), Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Xiang-chao Pang, Bo Cheng & Shu-xun Cui  (崔树勋)

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, South University of Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Xiang-chao Pang

  3. School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, North University of China, Taiyuan, 030051, China

    Bo Cheng

Authors
  1. Xiang-chao Pang
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  2. Bo Cheng
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  3. Shu-xun Cui  (崔树勋)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shu-xun Cui  (崔树勋).

Additional information

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21074102 and 21222401).

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Pang, Xc., Cheng, B. & Cui, Sx. The solvent quality of water for poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) in the collapsed state: Implications from single-molecule studies. Chin J Polym Sci 34, 578–584 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-016-1773-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-016-1773-9

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