Imperial College London
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ProfessorJoaoCabral

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering

Professor of Soft Matter
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 5571j.cabral Website

 
 
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Assistant

 

Mrs Sarah Payne +44 (0)20 7594 5567

 
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Location

 

517AACE ExtensionSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Aoki:2020:10.1021/acs.macromol.9b02115,
author = {Aoki, Y and Sharratt, W and Wang, H and O'Connell, R and Pellegrino, L and Rogers, S and Dalgliesh, RM and Higgins, JS and Cabral, JT},
doi = {10.1021/acs.macromol.9b02115},
journal = {Macromolecules},
pages = {445--457},
title = {Effect of tacticity on the phase behavior and demixing of p alpha MSAN/dPMMA blends investigated by SANS},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.9b02115},
volume = {53},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - We investigate the effect of polymer tacticity on the phase behavior and phase separation of polymer mixtures by small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). Poly(α-methyl styrene-co-acrylonitrile) (PαMSAN) and deuterated poly(methyl methacrylate) (dPMMA) with two degrees of syndiotacticity were selected as a model partially miscible blend, as one of the most highly interacting systems known (defined by the temperature dependence of the blend’s interaction parameter). One-phase (equilibrium) and time-resolved, spinodal demixing experiments were analyzed by de Gennes’ random phase approximation (RPA) and Cahn–Hilliard–Cook (CHC) theory, respectively. The second derivative of the Gibbs free energy of mixing with respect to composition (G″ ≡ ∂2ΔGm/∂2) and corresponding χ parameter were obtained from both RPA and CHC analysis and found to correlate well across the phase boundary. We find that blends with higher PMMA syndiotacticity exhibit greater miscibility and a steeper G″ temperature dependence by ∼40%. The segment length of dPMMA with higher syndiotacticity was found to be a = 7.4 Å, slightly larger than 6.9 Å reported for lower syndiotacticity dPMMA. Consideration of thermal fluctuations is required for the self-consistent analysis of the nontrivial evolution of the spinodal peak position q over time, corroborated by CHC model calculations. The temperature dependence of the mobility parameter, M, can be described by a “fast-mode” average of the diffusion coefficients of the blend constituents, except for quenches originating near the glass transition. A minimum demixing length scale of Λ ≈ 40 nm is obtained, in agreement with the theory for deeper quenches, but deviates at shallower quenches, whose origin we discuss. CHC correctly describes demixing length and time scales, except for quenches into the vicinity of the spinodal boundary. Our data demonstrat
AU  - Aoki,Y
AU  - Sharratt,W
AU  - Wang,H
AU  - O'Connell,R
AU  - Pellegrino,L
AU  - Rogers,S
AU  - Dalgliesh,RM
AU  - Higgins,JS
AU  - Cabral,JT
DO  - 10.1021/acs.macromol.9b02115
EP  - 457
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 0024-9297
SP  - 445
TI  - Effect of tacticity on the phase behavior and demixing of p alpha MSAN/dPMMA blends investigated by SANS
T2  - Macromolecules
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.9b02115
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000507721500047&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.macromol.9b02115
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/77206
VL  - 53
ER  -
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