Controlling Miscibility in Polymer Blends

Synonyms

Miscible polymer blends

Definition

Miscibility in polymer blends can be controlled by a number of parameters, including environmental conditions such as temperature and pressure or blend characteristics such as composition and component molecular weight. Depending on the nature of the interactions for a given system, these tunable parameters can be utilized to promote or suppress homogenization. Furthermore, the design of multicomponent mixtures utilizing macromolecular surfactants has been demonstrated as a highly efficient method to induce mixing (or phase ordering) of otherwise immiscible homopolymers.

Introduction

As discussed in the entries “Flory-Huggins Equation” and “Evaluation of χ Parameter,” the miscibility of polymer blends is governed by enthalpic and entropic contributions to the free energy of mixing, ΔG _m. A framework to describe these contributions was first proposed by Flory and Huggins and continues to find use currently [1, 2]:

$$ \frac{\Delta {G}_m{v}_0}{...