Structural fluctuations in cross-linked matrices with narrow pore size distribution

The interplay between water and hydrophilic polymer matrices is object of study in many papers. Incoherent elastic, quasielastic neutron scattering and NMR low resolution relaxometry are among the most informative approaches for the understanding of the behaviour of water in confining media. A problem often occurring in these studies is the structural heterogeneity of systems such as hydrogels. As a consequence, all the investigated features are smeared in their values and the analysis of the related distributions is not an easy task to match. For this reasons, we present here an incoherent elastic neutron scattering study of hydrated polymer matrices with a narrow distribution of the pore size. The availability of such samples allows to study the relationship between the static and dynamic properties of the polymer network interacting with water. In this paper also, we propose a correlation of the parameters obtained by the analysis of incoherent elastic neutron scattering results by means of a simplified two well potential model with distinctive structural elements of the polymeric chains. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.