Phase separation dynamics of a poly(vinyl methyl ether)/polystyrene (PVME/PS) blend studied by ultrafast differential scanning calorimetry |
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Authors: | Shaochuan Luo Lai Wei Jing Jiang Ye Sha Gi Xue Xiaoliang Wang Dongshan Zhou |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of High Performance Polymer Materials and Technology, and The State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Nanjing University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China;2. School of Physical Science and Technology, Xinjiang Key Laboratory and Phase Transitions and Microstructures in Condensed Matters, Yili Normal University, Yining, People's Republic of China |
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Abstract: | In this work, ultrafast differential scanning calorimetry (UFDSC) is used to study the dynamics of phase separation. Taking poly(vinyl methyl ether)/polystyrene (PVME/PS) blend as the example, we firstly obtained the phase diagram that has lower critical solution temperature (LCST), together with the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the homogeneous blend with different composition. Then, the dynamics of the phase separation of the PVME/PS blend with a mass ratio of 7:3 was studied in the time range from milliseconds to hours, by the virtue of small time and spatial resolution that UFDSC offers. The time dependence of the glass transition temperature (Tg) of PVME‐rich phase, shows a distinct change when the annealing temperature (Ta) changes from below to above 385 K. This corresponds to the transition from the nucleation and growth (NG) mechanism to the spinodal decomposition (SD) mechanism, as was verified by morphological and rheometric investigations. For the SD mechanism, the temperature‐dependent composition evolution in PVME‐rich domain was found to follow the Williams–Landel–Ferry (WLF) laws. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2017 , 55, 1357–1364 |
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Keywords: | dynamics LCST phase separation PVME/PS ultrafast differential scanning calorimetry |
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