M. Vanneste et G. Groeninckx, TERNARY BLENDS OF PCL, SAN15 AND SMA14 - MISCIBILITY, CRYSTALLIZATIONAND MELTING BEHAVIOR, AND SEMICRYSTALLINE MORPHOLOGY, Polymer, 36(22), 1995, pp. 4253-4261
The miscibility and phase behaviour of the ternary blend consisting of
poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL), poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) with
15wt% acrylonitrile (SAN15) and poly(styrene-co-maleic anhydride) wit
h 14wt% maleic anhydride (SMA14) have been investigated by means of vi
sual observations, light transmission measurements, differential scann
ing calorimetry (d.s.c.) and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. The
influence of the molecular weight of the components and of the blend c
omposition is discussed. All crystallizable blends show two melting en
dotherms in the d.s.c. thermograms. The crystallization conditions wer
e varied to examine this complex melting behaviour. The lamellar morph
ology of the semicrystalline blends was studied to obtain information
about the most important morphological parameters (e.g. long spacing,
thickness of the crystalline and amorphous layers, and width of the tr
ansition layer). On the basis of these morphological parameters, it wa
s possible to get an idea about the type of segregation of the amorpho
us components (SAN15 and SMA14) in the blends during crystallization.