Melt rheology of tadpole-shaped polystyrenes with different ring sizes

In this study, linear melt rheology of a single-tail tadpole-shaped polystyrene, ST-30/80, having ring and linear sizes of MR ∼ 30 kg mol-1 and ML ∼ 80 kg mol-1, respectively, was examined, and the effect of the ring size on rheological properties of tadpole polymers was discussed by comparing with the data of the previously reported tadpole samples having MR ∼ 60 kg mol-1. ST-30/80 exhibits an entanglement plateau and shows a clearly slower terminal relaxation than that of its component ring and linear polymers. When the zero-shear viscosity η0 for ST-30/80 is plotted against the molecular weight of a linear tail chain, the data point lies on the single curve of η0 for 4- and 6-arm star polymers and the single-tail tadpoles with MR ∼ 60 kg mol-1. These results suggest that the tadpole molecule in this study spontaneously forms a characteristic entanglement network, i.e., the intermolecular ring-linear threading, in the same manner as the previous tadpole samples, even though the size of the ring part is just slightly larger than the entanglement molecular weight (i.e., MR ∼ 1.8Me).