Miscible blends comprising two carbonyl-containing polymers. Poly(epsilon-caprolactone) with poly(benzyl methacrylate)

Differential scanning calorimetry, optical microscopy, and infrared spectro scopy were perfomed to characterize poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL)/poly(b enzyl methacrylate) (PBzMA) blend of full compositions. The binary polymer mixture of all compositions forms a true miscible blend with a homogeneous phase structure attributed to matched polarity. The thermal transition beha vior suggests that: the intermolecular interactions between the pairs are l ikely non-specific and only comparable with those among the homapolymer mol ecules. The FT-IR results infers that inter-molecular mixing in segmental s cales does exist, although: the segmental scales are not particularly fine and some minor homomolecular aggregation might be present. It is concluded that the blend phase behavior is miscibility with non-specific, mostly bein g of a matched polarity, intermolecular interactions. Upon heating, phase s eparation occurs via ina binodal nucleation & growth (NG) mechanism at abov e 240 degrees C. The phase separation phenomenon is attributed to a cause o f thermodynamic lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior. Upon c ooling at regularly reasonable rates, phase separation could be reversed ba ck to original homogeneity of miscibility.