Polymer blends are widely used in packaging, electronics and medical applications among others due to their enhanced properties as compared to the pure homopolymer materials. Polymer blends tend to phase separate which enables tunable morphology and properties. Polydiene/polyolefin blends, as commercially relevant elastomers, are important source materials for adhesives, insulating materials, among others. Properties of polymer blends are highly dependent on the interactions between their pure components, typically quantified as the Flory-Huggins interaction parameter, χ. However, there is little quantitative information on thermodynamic interactions of polydiene/polyolefin blends which prevents us from reaching a deep understanding on their mixing processes and phase behavior, in order to design advanced elastomers with targeted properties. Compared with polydiene/polydiene and polyolefin/polyolefin blends, polydiene/polyolefin blends typically exhibit large χ and a strong temperature dependence which allows us to achieve tunable properties. For most of the cases, theoretical models such as solubility parameter theory fail to explain the strong interactions of polydiene/polyolefin blends. It opens up the opportunity for us to measure thermodynamic interactions of polydiene/polyolefine blends and translate our results into theoretical models. Our study focused on mapping out the thermodynamic interactions of model polydiene/polyolefin blends containing polybutadiene, polyisoprene and their saturated analogues. Our previous work showed the interaction between 1,2-polybutadiene (1,2-PBD) and poly(ethyl ethylene) (PEE) is large and strongly temperature dependent. We examined interactions in blends containing partially saturated 1,2-PBD (i.e. 1,2-PBD-PEE random copolymer) and PEE. χ of 1,2-PBD-PEE and PEE was systematically described by the random copolymer theory (RCT). We have recently extended this analysis to blends containing 1,4-polyisoprene (1,4-PI). The validity of RCT to predict the χ in blends containing 1,2-PBD-PEE and 1,4-PI has been examined. Finally, In order to characterize χ of 1,4-PI and polyethylene (PE), a series of 1,4-PI and poly(ethylene-<i>co</i>-ethyl ethylene) (PE-PEE) blends have also been characterized.

Thermodynamic Interactions in polydiene/polyolefin blends

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.