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Porod scattering study of coarsening in immiscible polymer blends |
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| Authors: | Kristin L. Brinker Andrew H. Lebovitz John M. Torkelson Wesley R. Burghardt |
| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208;2. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Illinois 60208 |
| Abstract: | Studies of immiscible blend compatibilization often involve laborious microscopy methods to characterize changes in the particle size distribution with time in the melt. Here we explore a simple alternative approach based on Porod scattering from the two-phase structure. Although micron-sized particles in immiscible polymer blends are too large to be fully characterized by small-angle scattering, Porod scattering measurements of the interfacial area combined with knowledge of the blend volume fraction allows determination of an average particle diameter from a single scattering measurement. This technique is illustrated in experiments monitoring coarsening of particle size in polystyrene/poly(methyl methacrylate) blends prepared either by melt blending or solid-state shear pulverization. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 43: 3413–3420, 2005 |
| Keywords: | blends electron microscopy interfaces SAXS SEM solid-state shear pulverization |