Water/polymer mixtures in hard and soft confinement

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The topic of project 3 is structure, dynamics and phase behavior of mixtures in hard and soft confinement. Starting with water/alcohol mixtures we will focus on mixtures of water and polymers. The experimental methods employed are static and dynamic scattering and dielectric relaxation. The soft confinement is provided by the surfactant layer of water-in-oil microemulsions. This is to be compared with results from the hard confinement as provided by well defined cylindrical pores in ion-track-etched polymer foils. This will enable us to directly observe the impact of the confining wall on the phase behavior of water/alcohol and water/polymer mixtures. The contributions arising from the wall potential and the dynamics of the confinement will be analysed. As a model system for polymers dissolved in water we will use polyethyleneoxide and polypeptides. In the latter case we will study the expected conformational change in confinement. Our aim is to contribute to an understanding of the interplay between spatial confinement on phase behavior and molecular dynamics of the multicomponent system and its coupling to the confining wall.