H. Veenstra et al., On the coarsening of co-continuous morphologies in polymer blends: effect of interfacial tension, viscosity and physical cross-links, POLYMER, 41(8), 2000, pp. 3037-3045
The coarsening of co-continuous morphologies in polymer blends with anneali
ng is studied, demonstrating the effect of interfacial tension, viscosity a
nd also physical cross-links in blends with thermoplastic elastomers. Go-co
ntinuous morphologies of 50/50 wt% stay co-continuous with annealing but sh
ow a linear increase in phase size with time. The 30/70 wt% blends break up
into droplet/matrix morphologies and shows an increase in phase size in th
e first stage of the coarsening process. A relation has been proposed, usin
g only the interfacial tension and viscosities of both components, to predi
ct the growth rate of coarsening. The relation shows good agreement with th
e rates found experimentally. The coarsening process in blends with thermop
lastic elastomers is severely slowed down or even stopped when physical cro
ss-links are present in the thermoplastic elastomers. The driving force for
coarsening is too small to overcome the stabilizing force due to physical
crosslinks. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.