Determination of mole percentages of brush and root of polymer chain grafted onto porous sheet

Uchiyama, Shoichiro*; Ishihara, Ryo*; Umeno, Daisuke*; Saito, Kyoichi*; Yamada, Shinsuke*; Hirota, Hideyuki*; Asai, Shiho

Radiation-induced graft polymerization has been applied to the commercial production of functional materials, e.g., absorber of basic gases and ion-exchanger of proteins. However, to date, the graft chain has not been satisfactorily characterized because of the difficulty in isolating the graft chain from the trunk polymer. In this study, a simple method is used to determine the mole percentages of the polymer brush and root of the epoxy-group-containing graft chain, on the basis of the differences in swelling induced by the sequential introduction of ion-exchange groups into a hydrophobic graft chain with a reagent dissolved in water as the solvent. The proposed method enables us to scientifically depict an image of the polymer chain grafted onto the porous polymer and helps us to design porous polymers.