Effect of temperature on the viscoelastic behaviour of entangled solutions of multisticker associating polyacrylamides

The viscoelactic behaviour of polyacrylamides (PAM) hydrophobically modified with small blocks (approximate to3 monomer units) of N,N-dihexylacrylamide (2 mol%) has been investigated in the entangled regime as a function of temperature by steady-flow and oscillatory experiments. The effect of temperature on the rheological behaviour of these systems was also investigated in the presence of surfactant. In both cases, the results were compared to those obtained for the unmodified analogue. The experimental data were analysed using a simple Maxwell model and the time-temperature superposition principle. The results indicate that the main effect of a change in temperature and/or addition of surfactant is to modify the lifetime of the physical crosslinks without changing their density, as inferred from a quasi-constant value of the plateau modulus. The comparison between the plateau moduli of the modified and unmodified systems shows unexpected higher values for the former systems. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.