CHAIN ARCHITECTURE AND MOLECULAR SELF-ORGANIZATION OF POLYURETHANES - PERSPECTIVES FOR THERMOPLASTIC ELASTOMERS

Segmented polyurethanes with a regular chain architecture exhibit very specific self-organizing properties, often leading to multiphase systems with special phase structures. The study of a series of relatively stiff, monodisperse polyurethane model compounds of various molecularly engineered structures and also multiblock copolymers consisting of an alternating sequence of highly flexible polyether and the above polyurethane segment has shown that extended chain crystallization and chain folding of hard segments and thus the size, shape and ordering of the hard domains can be created and rearranged cit will. The molecular design, which can also be applied to graft copolymers, predetermines the possibilities of supramolecular organization. These thermoplastic elastomers exhibit very special properties which correlate systematically with the supramolecular structure.