A study of the properties and topological trapping of cyclic poly(dimethylsiloxane) in poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene oxide) networks

Polymeric catenanes have been made from poly(2,6‐dimethyl‐1,4‐phenylene oxide) crosslinked in the presence of several, paucidisperse poly(dimethylsiloxane) cyclics of varying degrees of polymerization. The fraction of cyclic threaded or captured by the polymer network increases as the degree polymerization of the cyclic increases in good agreement with the crude estimates of Frisch and Wasserman. Thermal analysis and electron micrographs reveal microphone separation in all of the polymeric catenanes; with PDMS domain size around 10–50 μ. Most of the catenanes exhibit a lower tensile strength to break than the pure crosslinked PPO.