Yuki Hashimotoa,
Takuma Satoa,
Ryosuke Gotob,
Yuki Nagaoc,
Masaya Mitsuishid,
Shusaku Naganob and
Jun Matsui*e
aGraduate School of Science and Engineering, Yamagata University, 1-4-12 Kojirakawa-machi, Yamagata 990-8560, Japan
bDepartment of Molecular Design and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan
cSchool of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan
dInstitute for Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, 2-1-1 Katahira, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8577, Japan
eDepartment of Material and Biological Chemistry, Yamagata University, 1-4-12 Kojirakawa-machi, Yamagata 990-8560, Japan. E-mail: jun_m@sci.kj.yamagata-u.ac.jp
First published on 20th January 2017
In this paper, we report that poly(N-dodecylacrylamide) (pDDA) formed a well-ordered lamellar structure by annealing in humid conditions. Differential scanning calorimetry measurements of pDDA showed that the crystallized part of the dodecyl side chain in nanodomains melted at −28.5 °C and a glass transition temperature of 73.6 °C, indicating that pDDA is an amorphous polymer at room temperature (20 °C). Thin films of pDDA were prepared by spin coating. Two-dimensional grazing-angle incidence X-ray diffraction (GI-XRD) measurements indicated that the film is composed of randomly oriented lamellar domains. When the film was annealed under 98% relative humidity at 60 °C for 24 h, the GI-XRD imaging plate showed spot-like diffraction in the out-of-plane direction with second-order and third-order peaks, indicating that the lamellar plane is oriented parallel to the substrate plane. The lamellar spacing was determined to be 3.25 nm from the Bragg peak. Fourier transform infrared measurements of lamellar structured films showed that the dodecyl side chains are aligned perpendicular to the lamellar plane.
Several long alkyl side chain polymers have been reported to form a monolayer at the air–water interface.14–16 For example, poly(N-dodecylacrylamide) (pDDA) (Fig. 1) forms a stable monolayer at the air–water interface because of the strong hydrogen-bonding network between amide groups.17,18 Moreover, the monolayer can be transferred onto a solid substrate using the Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) technique. Recently, we reported a high proton-conductive film using a poly(N-dodecylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid) LB film.19 The high proton conduction in the copolymer LB film can be attributed to formation of a two-dimensional (2D) proton-conductive nanochannel in the interlayer of the LB film by humid annealing. Therefore, it is important to investigate the effect of humidity on the nanostructure of pDDA to understand the proton-conduction mechanism in the thin film.
In this study, we prepared a uniformly oriented lamellar film of pDDA by annealing a spin coted film in humid conditions. The lamellar structure was evaluated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), grazing-angle incidence XRD (GI-XRD), and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy.
FT-IR spectra were recorded on a Jasco FT/IR 4200 FT-IR spectrometer (Jasco Corp.). Incident-angle-dependent FT-IR spectra were recorded on a Nicolet 6700 FT-IR spectrometer (Nicolet) equipped with a mercury cadmium telluride detector (Thermo Fischer Scientific Inc.). The p-polarized infrared (IR) probe light incidence was set normal to the substrate and the incident angle (α) was varied from 0° (normal) to 38° by rotating the sample (Fig. 5c). Single-beam spectra were collected by changing α. 2D GI-XRD measurements were performed using a Rigaku FR-E X-ray diffractometer with an R-AXIS IV 2D detector (Rigaku Corp., Japan). We used Cu Kα radiation (λ = 0.1542 nm) with a beam size of approximately 300 μm × 300 μm. The camera length was 300 mm. The sample stage was composed of a goniometer and a vertical stage (ATS-C316-EM/ALV-300-HM; Chuo Precision Industrial Co. Ltd.). The incidence angle was chosen as 0.18–0.22°. One-dimensional (1D) XRD measurements were performed on a Rigaku Smartlab diffractometer (Rigaku Corporation) with a Cu Kα X-ray source (λ = 0.1542 nm) using a scintillation counter as the detector. The measurements were carried out by the symmetrical reflection geometry (θ–2θ) method. The thickness of the pDDA film was measured by stylus profilometry (DektakXT; Bruker). The water uptake dynamics of the pDDA film was investigated using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) (THQ-100P-SW; Tamadevice Co., Ltd, Japan) equipped with a flow cell. The humidity and temperature in the cell were controlled by a humidity controller (Bel Flow-1; BEL Japan, Inc., Japan) and a cool incubator (ICI1 1-6112-01; As-One, Japan). Polished 9 MHz crystals (Tamadevice Co., Ltd) were used for the measurements. The temperature and humidity in the cell were monitored with a data logger (RTR-507; T&D Corporation).
The qz value is not quite accurate in a GI-XRD measurement due to the underestimate from the incident angle and out of the Ewald sphere condition. In order to obtain an accurate value of the highly ordered lamellar spacing, we performed out-of-plane 1D XRD measurements of the annealed film using the θ–2θ method. Diffraction peaks of the lamellar structure are observed at q = 1.93, 3.90, and 5.82 nm−1 (Fig. 4a). The ratio of the diffraction peaks is 1:2:3, which strongly supports lamellae formation. The lamellar spacing was determined to be 3.25 nm from the diffraction pattern, and the spacing is attributed to the length of two dodecyl side chains (Fig. 4b). The planar ordering of the lamellae increased with increasing annealing time and temperature. In the case of the film annealed for 1 h under the same conditions, only the first-order Bragg peak at q = 2.05 nm−1 is observed with a scattering intensity of about ∼1400 cps (Fig. 4c and S2†). There is no trace of the higher order peaks. With increasing annealing time, the intensity increases and the lamella peak shifts to the lower q region. Therefore, the lamellar spacing increased. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the first peak is 0.167 nm−1 for 1 h annealing. With increasing annealing time, the FWHM gradually decreases and becomes almost constant for annealing times longer than 24 h (Fig. 4d). Moreover, higher order scattering peaks emerge for longer annealing time (Fig. S2†). A similar trend is observed with temperature. Higher temperature results in smaller q and a narrower first-order peak with second- and third-order peaks (Fig. S3†). Usually, long-range lamellar ordering in comb-like polymers is ascribed to crystallization of the long alkyl side chains.9,23 However, from the GI-XRD results, the dodecyl side chains in the in-plane oriented pDDA lamellar film are in an amorphous state. Therefore, the formation mechanism of the highly ordered in-plane oriented lamellar pDDA film greatly differs from that in semicrystalline comb-like polymers. The lamellar structure also formed on a hydrophilic silicon substrate, which indicates that the surface properties of the substrate do not affect structure formation (Fig. S4†).
The lamellar structure was further investigated by FT-IR spectroscopy (Fig. 5a and S5†). Based on the XRD results, the pDDA film annealed at 24 h under 98% RH at 60 °C was used for the FT-IR measurements. The IR absorption peak wavenumbers of the CH2 groups before and after annealing in humid conditions were compared to discuss the conformation of the dodecyl side chains. It has been reported that the absorption bands related to the asymmetric (νa) and symmetric (νs) CH2 stretching modes are sensitive to the conformation of the hydrocarbon. When the side chains are in the all-trans zigzag conformation, the peaks appear at 2918 ± 1 cm−1 (νa) and 2848 ± 1 cm−1 (νs), respectively. The peaks shift to longer wavelengths of 2927 ± 1 cm−1 (νa) and 2856 ± 1 cm−1 (νs) in the fully disordered conformation.24,25 The as-cast pDDA film has absorption peaks at νa = 2924 cm−1 and νs = 2854 cm−1. These peaks shifted to lower wavenumbers (νa = 2922 cm−1 and νs = 2852 cm−1) after humid annealing, which indicates that the number of trans conformers of the CH2 groups increased in the lamellar film (Fig. 5b). A negative wavenumber shift has been observed in the trans-rich form of pDDA for a highly oriented ordered LB film.26 Therefore, it can be concluded that the dodecyl side chains have a trans-rich conformation. Furthermore, the amide I peaks are sensitive to the hydrogen bonding conformation.27 The amide I peak is located at 1642 cm−1 for the lamellar structured film. The peak regions show that the amide bond has an α-helix or random-coil structure with a random hydrogen-bonded network.27 Although it is difficult to ascertain which structure is formed, the random hydrogen-bonded structure could be dominant in the planar lamellar structure.
To obtain further insight into the uniformly planer-oriented lamellar structure, the alkyl side chain orientation was investigated by incident-angle-dependent IR absorption of CH2. If the long alkyl chains have an all trans structure, the maximum absorption of CH2 stretching is obtained when the incident angle of the IR probe light matches the tilt angle of the dodecyl side chains (Fig. 5c).26,28 This phenomenon occurs because the CH2 stretching transition moment is perpendicular to the long axis of the alkyl chain. As previously mentioned, the dodecyl side chains are in a trans-rich conformation. Therefore, incident-angle-dependent IR absorption can be used to estimate the orientation of the dodecyl side chains. It is noteworthy that the number of effective molecules for IR absorption varies with the incident angle to the film. This effect was corrected by measuring angle-dependent IR spectra of the nonoriented polystyrene film and preparing a calibration curve. Fig. 5d shows the angle-dependent absorption of CH2 asymmetric stretching of the lamellar structured film. The absorbance increases with decreasing incident angle and reaches a maximum at α = 8°. This indicates that the alkyl side chains are almost perpendicularly aligned with respect to the substrate. It has been reported that the molecular length of the dodecyl side chain is 1.80 nm when it takes the all-trans conformation.26 Therefore, the lamellar spacing was calculated to be 3.58 nm when the dodecyl side chains are tilted at 8° and not interdigitated. The lamellar spacing was determined to be 3.25 nm from the out-of-plane XRD measurement. Compared with the calculated value, the actual value is 0.33 nm shorter. This suggests that not all of the dodecyl side chains have an all-trans conformation and the gauche conformer is present in the lamellar structure.
The response of the pDDA film to humidity change was investigated by QCM measurements. QCM was unstable at 60 °C under high humidity condition, therefore the measurements were carried out at 25 °C (Fig. S6†). The amount of water absorbed in the pDDA film increases with increasing RH and about 15 wt% of water adsorbed at the film at 98% RH (Fig. S6a†). The response to the RH change is rapid and it almost follows the RH change dynamics (Fig. S6b†). Before the measurements, all of the samples were dried (20 °C and 30% RH) for a few hours. Therefore, absorbed water amount is at most ∼3 wt% (Fig. S6a†). These results suggest that the uniformly oriented lamellae are retained even if water desorbs. Hence, the probable mechanism for the highly ordered lamellar structure by humid annealing is as follows. During annealing in humid conditions, water mainly absorbs in the hydrophilic amide main chain region, which increases the hydrophilic volume in the polymer film. The hydrophobic and hydrophilic volumes then become similar, which favors lamellae formation.29 As revealed by DSC measurements, Tg decreased in the water-adsorbed pDDA therefore the polymer chains are mobile in the annealed condition. The hydrophilic amide region of the polymer segregates to the surface because the air–polymer interface is highly hydrophilic in high humidity conditions. This surface segregation results in the dodecyl side chains orientating perpendicular to the substrate. The oriented dodecyl side chains act as the starting region for lamellae formation. The lamellar structure is stable in the room temperature even the water is desorbed because the Tg is higher than room temperature.
Footnote |
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: TGA spectrum of pDDA, XRD spectra of the pDDA film annealed under different conditions, FT-IR spectrum of the as-cast pDDA film, and the QCM result of the pDDA film with changing humidity. See DOI: 10.1039/c6ra27994e |
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