The rheological behaviors of hydroxyethylacrylate/sodium acryloyldimethyl taurate copolymer (EMT-10) in aqueous solution have been investigated systematically. EMT-10 has been widely used as a cosmetics thickener for its excellent emulsibility/stability at relatively low content; besides
its capability of persistent thickening effect over a broad variety of novel chemical structures is conducive to their perfect compatibility with specific active ingredients. Both pyrene fluorescence observation and rheological behavior revealed that hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions could enhance the intramolecular hydrophobic associations among EMT-10 macromolecules in the solution system
which led to the formation of hydrophobic microdomains within EMT-10 molecules even at ultra-low concentration. In the meantime
EMT-10’s thickening capability could be promoted by the synergism of these three interactions
i.e.
intermolecular hydrophobic associations
hydrogen bonding interaction
and electrostatic interaction. The viscosity of EMT-10 aqueous solution exhibited higher scaling value against concentration than neutral polymer and polyelectrolyte solutions did in the unentangled semidilute solution and entangled semidilute solution regions. Moreover
it was insensitive to temperature due to the counteracting effect between hydrophobic interaction and hydrogen bonding interaction. Yielding occurred when solution concentration was higher than 0.3 wt% and the yielding stress increased with mounting concentration. Dual yielding behaviors showed up at solution concentration above 1 wt%
of which the second yielding was related to the formation and breakup of clusters that resulted from intramolecular hydrophobic associations and hydrogen bonding interaction under high shearing. Various additives could affect the rheological behaviors of EMT-10 solution remarkably. Viscosity of 1.5 wt% EMT-10 solution decreased with the addition of surfactants
urea
and salt
among which salt exhibited a sharp reducing effect. Compared with poly(vinyl alcohol) and poly(ethylene oxide)
EMT-10 implicated strong intermolecular interactions including chain entanglements
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