Ana I. Vicente, Ana Ferreira, M. Ribeiro
Feb 1, 2017
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Journal
Polymer International
Abstract
An ethylene/5,7-dimethylocta-1,6-diene copolymer was sulfonated by two different approaches, solution and surface modification, varying parameters such as reaction time, temperature and concentration of the sulfonation reagent. Techniques such as FTIR-ATR, XPS and elemental analysis confirmed the successful sulfonation of the copolymers by both methods. Water uptake studies showed that the polarity of the initial copolymer was drastically changed upon functionalization and that the sulfonation by the in-solution method originates more hydrophilic polymers comparatively to the ones synthesized by the surface procedure. Moreover, DSC and thermogravimetric analysis pointed out to additional changes on the thermal properties of the sulfonated polymers relatively to the copolymer precursor. This study showed that the sulfonation process of the non-polar ethylene-diene copolymer conducted to a new hydrophilic material with a potential wide range of applications.