14Lewis Acid-Base Complexation of Polyamides and the effect of hydrogen bonding.pdfVIP

National Textile Center Annual Report Project No.: M01-S03 Competency: Materials Science Lewis Acid-Base Complexation of Polyamides and the effect of hydrogen bonding on structure development - [:8010/unity/lockers/proje ntcprojects/projects/M01-S03/] Project Team: Alan Tonelli (NC State) Polymer Science Richard Kotek (NC State) Polymer Chemistry Email: atonelli@ Phone: 919-515-6588 Name/school/expertise Members: Nad Vasanthan TRI/Princeton Polymer Science David Salem TRI/Princeton Polymer Physics Objective: It is generally believed that hydrogen bonding makes polyamides important engineering plastics, because of the high strength it imparts. However, the interchain hydrogen bonds between amide groups are seen as a barrier to ultradrawing of high molecular weight polyamides and, therefore, to the achievement of high strength and high modulus fibers. The purpose of the proposed research is to develop a new method to spin and draw high strength fibers and films by suppressing the interchain amide group hydrogen bonding. There is evidence in the literature that hydrogen bond suppression can be achieved by iodination, Lewis Acid - Base complexation of polyamides or mixing with polyamide inclusion compounds, and this may provide a way to temporarily eliminate hydrogen bonding during drawing, allowing orientation to the desired degree, followed by reformation of the hydrogen bonds in the oriented state. We will investigate the influence of hydrogen bonding on fiber formation in low and high molecular weight polyamides, and examine morphological characteristics such as molecular orientation in the crystalline and noncrystalline regions, degree of crystallinity and crystallite size. We will also explore the Lewis acid - base complexation reactions of polyamides as a means of probing the nature of intermolecula