STRUCTURAL STUDY ON THE BLEND OF POLY(ARY L-ETHER-ETHER-KETONE) AND POLY(P-PHENYLENE SULFIDE) BY ELECTRON-DIFFRACTION

The blend film of poly(aryl-ether-ether-ketone) (PEEK) and poly(p-phen ylene sulfide) (PPS) was examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). A hot solution of each of the homopolymers or the blend, where the numbers of phenylene rings of the two homopolymers were adjusted t o be approximately equal, was sandwiched between two glass slides. The n the oriented thin films were prepared by displacing one of the glass slides just after evaporation of the solvent (alpha-chloronaphthalene ). Morphological observation by the defocus contrast method and by dar k-field imaging revealed that all these films had fibrillar texture or iented in the shearing direction and also had the stacked-lamellar str ucture. From the selected-area electron diffraction (ED) experiments, the blend crystal was deduced to be orthorhombic, and the reflections in its ED pattern were indexed in association with the homopolymers. C onsequently,the lattice constants of the blend were slightly different from those of the homopolymers.