Aging of Thermoreversible Gel of Associating Polymers

We performed Langevin dynamics simulations of amphiphilic polymers that contain strongly associating stickers connected by long soluble chain segments. We explored the aging of a thermoreversible gel, which is cross-linked by aggregates (clusters) of the stickers, and observed a dramatic increase of their lifetime with aging. We find that the observed aging is the result of structural reorganization of the network: the number of cross-links decreases with time as small clusters disintegrate and their stickers are reabsorbed by large clusters that grow and become more stable by forming additional intramolecular associations between their stickers.