Design, synthesis, and characterization of lightly sulfonated multigraft acrylate-based copolymer superelastomers

Multigraft copolymer superelastomers consisting of a poly(n-butyl acrylate) backbone and polystyrene side chains were synthesized and the viscoelastic properties of the non-sulfonated and sulfonated final materials were investigated using extensional rheology (SER3). The non-linear viscoelastic experiments revealed significantly increased true stresses (up to 10 times higher) after sulfonating only 2–3% of the copolymer while the materials maintained high elongation (<700%). The linear viscoelastic experiments showed that the storage and loss modulus are increased by sulfonation and that the copolymers can be readily tuned and further improved by increasing the number of branching points and the molecular weight of the backbone. In this way, we show that by tuning not only the molecular characteristics of the multigraft copolymers but also their architecture and chemical interaction, we can acquire thermoplastic superelastomer materials with desired viscoelastic properties.