Investigation of structural and dynamics of polymer materials through selective deuteration

Kunlun Hong (Center for Nanophase Materials Science, ORNL)

Deuterium, also known as "heavy hydrogen", has a natural abundance of only 0.016% compared to protium, but can be an extremely useful for structural characterization tools. Selective incorporation of deuterium in place of protium in polymeric materials for the most part does not alter the physical and chemical properties of the compound significantly, yet can provide rich structural information due to their large difference in response to probing tools, such as neutron scattering length densities. Thus selective deuteration provides a very powerful approach toward elucidating structures and dynamics in polymeric materials. In this presentation, I will discuss our capability developed in CNMS in synthesis of various selectively deuterated polymers, surfactants, and other building blocks. We will also discuss some examples of selective deuteration in pinpointing polymeric structural features unambiguously with applications in organic electronics, composites, and stimuli-responsive architectures.

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