Phase separation of unsaturated polyester resin blended with poly(vinyl acetate)

✍ Scribed by Y. N. Hsieh; T. L. Yu

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 537 KB
• Volume: 73
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8995
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4628(19990919)73:12<2413::aid-app10>3.0.co;2-n

✦ Synopsis

The behavior of phase separation during the curing reaction of unsaturated polyester (UPE) resin in the presence of low profile additive, that is, poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc), was studied by low-angle laser light scattering (LALS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The experimental results revealed that the PVAc-rich phase was regularly dispersed in the cured styrene-UPE matrix for styrene-UPE resin blended with 5 wt % of PVAc. As the PVAc content was increased higher than 10 wt %, a cocontinuous PVAc and cured styrene-UPE phase was observed for the cured systems. The LALS observations were carried out in situ at a curing temperature of 100°C; thus, the effect of the rate of exothermic heat released from curing reaction on the morphology of curing system was investigated and reported in this work.