The effect of block copolymers on the interfacial tension tr was investigated for poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO)/poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) and for PDMS/polystyrene (PS). With PEO/PDMS the additives were the triblock copolymers PDMS-block-PEO-block-PDMS [P(DMS-EO-DMS)] and PEO-block- PDMS-block-PEO [P(EO-DMS-EO)]. For the former additive the number of monomeric units of the end blocks varied between 4 and 32 and that of the middle block between 23 and 77; these numbers are 70 and 52, respectively, for the latter. In the case of the system PS/PDMS, the diblock copolymer PS-block-PDMS [P(S-DMS)], consisting of 430 S and 68 DMS units, was studied. The effects turned out to be largest for the system PDMS/PEO/P(DMS-EO-DMS); it was therefore studied in greater detail within the temperature range of 70-150°C. Upon addition of increasing amounts of copolymer, tr falls rapidly to ~ 10% of its initial value and levels off as the critical micelle concentration (<0.5 wt% in the PEO phase at 100°C) is surpassed. Similarly, at a given concentration of the additive, tr approaches a limiting value as the number of monomeric units in the PDMS block is increased above 15. In contrast to the value of a of the pure blend, which is practically independent of temperature, that of the ternary system increases markedly with temperature. The results are compared with the predictions of Vilgis and Noolandi.
Посилання на статтю:
Effect of block copolymers on the interfacial tension between two "immiscible" homopolymers / M. Wagner and B. A. Wolf // Polymer. – 1993. – Vol 34. – P. 1460-1464.
