Weak temperature dependence of structure in hydrophobic polyelectrolyte aqueous solution (PSSNa): correlation between scattering and viscosity.

We study in this paper, either in the semidilute regime by small angle scattering or in dilute and semidilute unentangled regimes by viscosimetric measurements, the influence of temperature on the structure of aqueous solutions of an hydrophobic polyelectrolyte, poly(styrene-co-sodium styrene sulfonate). There is a strong consistency between the two methods: the very weak dependence over temperature at high chemical charge is increased for lower charge fractions, i.e., when hydrophobicity is increased. The solvent quality is thus modified, whereas, for comparison, the hydrophilic polyelectrolyte poly(acrylamide-co-sodium-2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonate), shows a structure totally independent of temperature, for all the charge fractions.