EXAFS study of halato-telechelic polymers and-capped with group IVb metal carboxylates at room and low temperature

The EXAFS analysis at 300, 70 and 5 K has shown that the thermal disorder is very low in a carboxylato telechelic polybutadiene neutralized with an increasing excess of Zr isopropoxide. Two types of Zr-O bonds in the first shell account for the experimental data. The Zr-O distances and number of oxygen neighbours in the two subshells are found to be independent of temperature in the investigated range. The proportion of Zr in the samples has no effect on the total number of oxygen atoms around Zr, in contrast to their relative distribution in the two subshells. The number of Zr atoms increases in the second shell with the total amount of this metal. Upon increasing degree of neutralization from 200 to 600%, the static disorder increases together with a strong reduction of the dynamic part of the Debye-Waller (DW) factor. At a high degree of neutralization (> 400%), the DW factor for the Zr-Zr bond is largely independent of temperature. These observations agree with formation of Zr polynuclear microdomains, the size and rigidity of which increase with the Zr content, in good agreement with the profound changes previously reported in the viscoelastic properties of these materials.