TERNARY BLENDS OF PCL, SAN15 AND SMA14 - MISCIBILITY, CRYSTALLIZATIONAND MELTING BEHAVIOR, AND SEMICRYSTALLINE MORPHOLOGY

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.