Morphologies and properties of polyblends. II: Blends of poly(methyl methacrylate) and a chlorine‐containing polycarbonate; effect of added copolymer

Abstract

This paper extends our previous study of the morphology and properties of polyblends of a polycarbonate and poly(methyl methacrylate) to an investigation of the influence of small amounts of added graft copolymer. The results demonstrate that, in spite of the complexity of the molecular species involved, graft copolymers can act as effective surfactants in polymer blends. The dominant effect is to form finer dispersions of one component in the other, with commensurate increases in interfacial area. A preliminary investigation of the influence of molecular parameters in the graft copolymer is reported; in all cases the molecular weight of the poly(methyl methacrylate) in the copolymer was kept constant and greater than that of the homopolymer whereas the molecular weight of the polycarbonate was varied. Finer dispersions and greater modifications to the relaxation behaviour were found as the molecular weights of the polycarbonate blocks in the copolymer increased and became comparable with the molecular weight of the homopolymer, and as the copolymer content increased.

Interfacial Tension Reduction in Polystyrene/Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Blends by the Addition of Poly(styrene-b-dimethylsiloxane)

“…The copolymer is then favored to form micelles in the bulk phases rather than saturate the interface. The critical micelle concentration is given by13 = expt'PcJkT -A\ (7) where A denotes the shorter sequence and the chemical potential at the is defined as µ^ = (3/2) (1•74 1/3 ~D1/3(yA01/3 (8) This result indicates that saturation can only be obtained for a dry brush (i.e., ®sat < ) when the symmetry factor, f = NJN, is greater than 0.31.…”

Transparent PC/PMMA Blends with Enhanced Mechanical Properties via Reactive Compounding of Functionalized Polymers

“…Various process strategies (i.e., solution casting or melt mixing) have been reported in the literature to produce transparent or translucent PC/PMMA blends. Since the preparation of polymer blends by solution casting [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ] is not an industrially relevant process, the present study is limited to the compatibilization of melt-mixed PC/PMMA blends.…”