Summary: The preferential partition of silver nanowires in thin films of polystyrene/poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (PS/PVP, with a 30/70 weight ratio) blends, that induces drastic blend morphology variation, is reported. The silver nanowires are fabricated with the anodic aluminum oxide templating method, and have a diameter of 300 nm and length of 10 µm. At a higher nanowire loading of 10 wt.‐%, the silver nanowires are entangled and selectively concentrate within the continuous PVP domain. If surface modified by thiols carrying hydrophobic tails, the silver nanowires become hydrophobic and prefer to stay within the discrete hydrophobic PS domains. At a lower nanowire loading of 5 wt.‐%, the nanowires are non‐entangled and concentrate at regions near the interfaces of the PS and PVP phases, which induces the formation of interconnected PS domains.
Preferential partition of silver nanowires in thin films of PS/PVP (30/70) blends at a casting temperature of −10 °C.
