| Abstract: | The polymer commonly referred to as poly(vinyl butyral) is actually the statistical terpolymer poly(vinyl butyral‐co‐vinyl alcohol‐co‐vinyl acetate), the main component of the polymeric interlayer in automotive and architectural safety glass, amongst other uses. Here, the effects of ‘self‐grafting’ or ‘auto‐grafting’ in this polymer are examined using size‐exclusion chromatography (SEC) with triple detection. These and supporting experiments (eg, batch‐mode multi‐angle light scattering) allow study of the effects of induced branching in the resultant PVB‐graft‐PVB molecule, and comparison with the ungrafted (though not linear) base polymer. This was done by application and extension of the classic Zimm–Stockmayer long‐chain branching (LCB) theory, by determination of the fractal dimension (df) of the polymers and of the change in df as a function of molar mass, as well as by the multiplicity of size parameters that are measured in a multi‐detector SEC experiment. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry |
