A study of polymer blends by nonradiative energy transfer fluorescence spectroscopy

The nonradiative energy transfer (NRET) method has been used to study the miscibility of polymer blends in the solid state. This can be done by labeling the polymers with fluorescence donor and acceptor chromophores. The efficiency of energy transfer, which reveals the interpenetration of the chains, is measured by following changes in the fluorescence intensity ratio of the donor and acceptor as a function of the concentration of the polymer mixture and by comparison with reference values corresponding to totally miscible and totally immiscible systems. It is shown that the reference ratio corresponding to the absence of energy transfer must be determined by using donor-labeled and acceptor-labeled polymer films, instead of making measurements in chromophore solutions in organic solvents, as has usually been done. It is also shown that fluorescence quenching is important in such studies, since it can lead to variations of the fluorescence intensity ratio by more than an order of magnitude; this factor varies with blend concentration and is particularly sensitive to the presence of halogen atoms. The NRET technique has been applied to several PVC/CPVC binary blends and to PCL/PVC/CPVC ternary blends in which PVC and CPVC were labeled by naphthalene and anthracene, respectively PCL is poly(ε-caprolactone), PVC is poly(vinyl chloride), and CPVC is chlorinated PVC]. For binary blends, the measured intensity ratios indicate the immiscibility of PVC with CPVC, although there is nonnegligible energy transfer between the two phases. For ternary blends, the intensity ratios indicate that the addition of up to 40 wt % of PCL to the immiscible PVC/CPVC binary system leads to the formation of two coexisting PCL/PVC and PCL/CPVC phases.