Dielectric relaxation and effect of plasticisers on siloxane polymers

Studies of dielectric relaxation of polydimethyl siloxane have shown that there is anomalous behaviour near its melting point (≈ ?50°), probably due to the presence of “Rotator Phases”. A detailed study of polyphenyl methyl siloxane, with various polar and non-polar diluents, has been carried out. The most interesting aspect of this study is the systematic broadening of the loss curves with increasing concentration of diluents while retaining conformity with the empirical decay function π(t) = exp ? (t/τ_o)^β. The broadening of loss curves was explained in terms of a distribution of local concentration of the diluents. The range of concentration (ΔC) was calculated for various diluents. It was found that ΔC was larger for the polar diluents than for the non-polar diluents. This result shows that polar plasticiser molecules have changed considerably the environment of the segmental motion of the basic polymer. There is also a linear relationship between the loss factor maximum (?^″_m) with the number of carbon atoms in the plasticiser molecule.