Modeling the effect of compatibilizers in the coarsening of ternary polymer blends with core-shell morphology

✍ Scribed by A. Peter Russo; E. Bruce Nauman

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 324 KB
• Volume: 38
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0887-6266
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0488(20000515)38:10<1301::aid-polb50>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

Numerical simulations of the phase separation and coarsening of particulate, ternary polymer blends have been performed using a ternary form of the modified Cahn-Hilliard equation. The third component was chosen to be a compatibilizer, typically being a random copolymer of the major components. The results show that compatibilized blends follow the same Lifshitz-Slyozov coarsening law as binary systems. Slower coarsening rates, indicating system stabilization, were observed for blends containing ϳ10% compatibilizer and exhibiting a core-shell morphology. Larger amounts of compatibilizer resulted in significantly higher coarsening rates. This appears to be a result of the greater affinity of the compatibilizer for the major component and warrants further experimental investigation.