THE GLASS TEMPERATURE OF DENDRITIC POLYMERS

A theoretical treatment of the glass temperature of dendritic polymers is presented. The influences of polymer backbone, end group, initiator core, branching unit, composition and functionality are discussed. In dendritic polymers the glass temperature is dependent only on the generation number of dendritic growth and thus only on the molecular weight of a dendron, but not on the molecular weight of the whole molecule. It is governed primarily by the backbone glass temperature and depends little on branching functionality. Only minor differences between linear polymer and dendrite are obtained, since the influences of end groups and branching compensate each other to a large extent. (C) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.