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The main
objective of the project is to understand the structure
and nature of aggregates formed in aqueous solutions of industrially
important ionic polysaccharides: chitosan and hydrophobically modified (HM)
chitosan.
The work consists of several
tasks:
1) to prepare a
series of well characterized samples of HM chitosan with different content,
chain length and degree of branching of hydrophobic alkyl side chains;
2) to study
experimentally and theoretically the nature of aggregates in aqueous
solutions of charged unmodified chitosan which seem to be a peculiar
feature for many charged polysaccharides;
3) to study
the self-association in aqueous solutions of HM chitosan with a particular attention to the search for finite size
clusters recently predicted theoretically for any polyelectrolytes with
associative groups;
4) to study the kinetics of
adsorption of HM chitosan on air/water interface in order to develop a new
chromatographic procedure, which allows one to fractionate the
hydrophobically associating macromolecules according to their degree of
hydrophobicity;
5) to investigate the
self-association in the adsorption monolayers of HM chitosan submitted to a
lateral compression with a particular attention to the role which is played
by the interface in the formation of micelle-like aggregates.
These studies will permit to better understand a picture
of various intermolecular interactions in associating ionic
polysaccharides, which is important in the unfolding of numerous practical
applications of these polymers.
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