Depending on the molecular architecture of the individual components and their composition, polymer blends can undergo phase separation.  For the present study, two biodegradable polymers (poly(3-hydroxy-butyrate) (PHB), poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL) and their 50:50 (% w/w) phase-separated blend were investigated by terahertz spectroscopy.  IR cannot access the low-frequency region (400 -10 cm�1) but this is of importance for polymer analysis.  However, in this frequency range the T-ray is sensitive to lattice vibrations and intermolecular vibrations between adjacent polymer chains within a crystallographic unit cell.  The preliminary investigations reported herein demonstrate that terahertz spectroscopy is capable of discriminating polymer blends and their individual components due to their differences in the state of order.  Thus, THz spectroscopy is a valuable and complementary analytical tool yielding new information for the characterization of chemical and physical properties of polymers. Results will be discussed with the help of exemplary spectra.

Terahertz spectroscopic characterization of phase separation in polymer blends

245th National Meeting (2013)

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