SURFACTANT-INDUCED MESOMORPHIC STRUCTURES IN FLEXIBLE POLYMERS

During the last two years, mesomorphic structures for polyelectrolytes with ionically bound surfactants have been reported. This has now bee n extended to the case of hydrogen bonding. For poly (4-vinyl pyridine )-pentadecyl phenol (P4VP-(PDP)(x)), the long period L(p) of the lamel lar structure is found to decrease as a function of x, in complete con trast to polyelectrolyte systems. Scaling arguments predict that the x -dependence of the long period is entirely due to the reduction in the thickness of the polymer layer and satisfies L(p) proportional to x(- 1), as observed experimentally. Polyelectrolyte-surfactant complexes, on the other hand, are always locally fully complexed due to cooperati ve complexation with a corresponding x-independent long period.