Synthesis of the first hyperbranched polyorganoethoxysilsesquioxanes and their chemical transformations to functional core-shell nanogel systems

Aerogel-Like Material Based on PEGylated Hyperbranched Polymethylethoxysiloxane

Aerogels are a class of materials that have gained increasing attention over the past several decades due to their exceptional physical and chemical properties. These materials are highly porous, with a low density and high surface area, allowing for applications such as insulation, catalysis, and energy storage. However, traditional aerogels, such as pure silica aerogels, suffer from brittleness and fragility, which limit their usefulness in many applications. Herein, we have addressed this problem by using organosilicon compounds, namely polymethylsilsesquioxane derivatives, for the synthesis of aerogel-like materials. Specifically, we have developed a novel approach involving surfactant-free synthesis of microcapsules from partially PEGylated hyperbranched polymethylethoxysiloxane. Due to the highly diphilic nature of these compounds, they readily concentrate at the oil/water interface in aqueous emulsions encapsulating oil droplets. During the subsequent condensation, the organosilicon precursor is consumed for hexane encapsulation (yielding hollow microcapsules) followed by the formation of a continuous condensed phase. Concurrently, methyl groups ensure the hydrophobicity of the resulting materials, which eliminates the need of using additional reagents for their hydrophobization.

Synthesis of Multifunctional Oligomethylsilsesquioxanes by Catalyst-Free Hydrolytic Polycondensation of Methyltrimethoxysilane under Microwave Radiation

The catalyst-free hydrolytic polycondensation of methyltrimethoxysilane under microwave radiation has been studied. The effect of molar ratios of the reagents (MTMS/H₂O = 1/0.5-1/9), radiation power (20-300 W), temperature (30-50 °C) and duration of exposure (2.5-90 min) on the course of the process is considered. It has been shown that the use of microwave radiation promotes the activation of the process, and almost complete conversion of the monomer can be achieved in 5 min at 30 °C, 20 W and an MTMS/H₂O ratio of 1/3. The optimal radiation power for the maximum conversion of the monomer and MeO-groups is in the range from 20 to 100 W. An increase in the water amount, the duration and temperature of the process contribute to an increase in the monomer conversion, a decrease in the content of residual MeO-groups and the yield of non-volatile oligomethylsilsesquioxanes. The limits of this approach using to the synthesis of multifunctional branched polyorganosilsesquioxanes are determined. Depending on the process conditions, homogeneous water-alcohol solutions of oligomethylsilsesquioxane with a concentration of 20 to 50 wt.% can be obtained. The OH-group content and the molecular weight of the obtained oligomers vary from 10 to 30 wt.% and from 1000 to 600 Da, respectively.

Benzocyclobutene-functionalized hyperbranched polysiloxane for low-k materials with good thermostability

Although hyperbranched polysiloxanes have been extensively studied, they have limited practical applications because of their low glass transition temperatures. In this study, we synthesized benzocyclobutene-functionalized hyperbranched polysiloxane (HB-BCB) via the Piers-Rubinsztajn reaction. The synthesized material was cured and crosslinking occurred at temperatures greater than 200 °C, forming a low-k thermoset resin with high thermostability. The structure of the resin was characterized using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, viz. ¹H NMR and ¹³C NMR spectroscopy. ²⁹Si NMR spectroscopy was used to calculate the degree of branching. Differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic mechanical analysis, and thermogravimetric analysis revealed that the cured resin possesses good high-temperature mechanical properties and exhibits a high thermal decomposition temperature (T_d5 = 512 °C). In addition, the cured resin has a low dielectric constant (k = 2.70 at 1 MHz) and low dissipation factor (2.13 × 10^-3 at 1 MHz). Thus, the prepared resin can function as a low-k material with excellent high-temperature performance. These findings indicate that the performance of crosslinked siloxane is significantly attributed to the introduction of BCB groups and the formation of the highly crosslinked structure.

Relaxation dynamics of semiflexible treelike small-world polymer networks

We study the relaxation dynamics of the polymer networks that are constructed based on a degree distribution specific to small-world networks. The employed building algorithm generates polymers with a large variety of architectures, thus allowing for a detailed study of the structural transition from a pure linear chain to dendritic polymer networks. This is done by varying a single parameter p, which measures the randomness in the degree of the network's nodes. The dynamics is investigated in the framework of the generalized Gaussian structures model by monitoring the influence of the parameter p and of the stiffness parameter q on the behavior of the relaxation quantities: averaged monomer displacement, storage modulus, and loss modulus. The structure properties of the constructed polymers are described by the mean-square radius of gyration. In the absence of stiffness, in the intermediate frequencies domain of the dynamical quantities we encounter different behaviours, such as a dendritic behavior followed by a linear one for very small values of p or a single well-marked dendritic behavior for higher values of p. The stiffness parameter q influences drastically the relaxation dynamics of these polymer networks and in general no evident scaling regions were encountered. However, for some values of the parameter set (p,q), such as (0.8,0.4), an extremely short constant slope region, less than one order of magnitude, was found.

Dynamics of Dual Scale-Free Polymer Networks

We focus on macromolecules which are modeled as sequentially growing dual scale-free networks. The dual networks are built by replacing star-like units of the primal treelike scale-free networks through rings, which are then transformed in a small-world manner up to the complete graphs. In this respect, the parameter γ describing the degree distribution in the primal treelike scale-free networks regulates the size of the dual units. The transition towards the networks of complete graphs is controlled by the probability p of adding a link between non-neighboring nodes of the same initial ring. The relaxation dynamics of the polymer networks is studied in the framework of generalized Gaussian structures by using the full eigenvalue spectrum of the Laplacian matrix. The dynamical quantities on which we focus here are the averaged monomer displacement and the mechanical relaxation moduli. For several intermediate values of the parameters' set ( γ , p ) , we encounter for these dynamical properties regions of constant in-between slope.