Morphological Developement in Copolymer Blends of Poly (Ethylene-Co-Hexene) and Poly (Ethylene-Co-Butene)

Published

April 1, 2002

Author(s)

K Shimizu, Haonan Wang, Z G. Wang, H D. Kim, Charles C. Han

Abstract

In order to understand the liquid-liquid phase separation and crystallization in copolymer blends of PEH and PEB, the transmitted optical microscopy was employed to observe the morphological development with the normal quench and double quench measurements. In the normal quench measurement, the spherulites were observed and the spherulitic growth rates in PEH, H90 and H50 were obtained. However the liquid-liquid phase separation could not be observed in this measurement. These results suggest that the blends are ease to crystallize at the isothermal crystallization temperature and it is difficult to observe the liquid-liquid phase separation due to the similarity of the refractive indices between PEH and PEB components. In the double quench measurement, both the interconnected bicontinuous structure and spherulites can be observed. The size of the interconnected bicontinuous tubes was increased with time. The results show that the liquid-liquid phase separation can be observed in the nearly isorefractive PEH/PEB blends and the morphology in the blends can be controlled by adjusting the sample temperatures.

Citation

Journal of the American Chemical Society

Volume

223

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

crystallization, growth rate, liquid-liquid phase separation, optical microscopy, Poly(ethylene-co-butene), Poly(ethylene-co-hexene

Citation

Shimizu, K. , Wang, H. , Wang, Z. , Kim, H. and Han, C. (2002), Morphological Developement in Copolymer Blends of Poly (Ethylene-Co-Hexene) and Poly (Ethylene-Co-Butene), Journal of the American Chemical Society (Accessed July 26, 2024)