The Effect of Blending Natural Rubber‐graft‐poly(methyl methacrylate) on the Dielectric Relaxation of Poly(ethylene oxide)

Abstract

This study focuses on the dielectric relaxation of the immiscible PEO/NR-g-PMMA blends. Due to the heterogeneous morphologies of the blends, the molecular mobility in the polymer chains displays various relaxation responses. The dielectric relaxation of the blends is analyzed in terms of complex impedance, complex permittivity, tangent loss spectra, and complex modulus. The molten neat PEO promotes a long-range conduction mechanism. On the other hand, NR-g-PMMA displays the relaxation of short-range motion only at temperatures above the glass transition temperature of PMMA-graft. As for the blends, the relaxation of the dipoles proceeds slower and broader dispersion of relaxation times occurs when NR-g-PMMA is added to PEO. In the molten state, only blends with an excess of PEO display the dominance of the long-range motion of the dipolar entities. The short-range motion of the dipolar entities becomes dominant when NR-g-PMMA is in excess. This suggests that the high restriction of dipole motions in NR-g-PMMA affects the dielectric relaxation behavior of PEO/NR-g-PMMA blends.