Scaling of interfacial properties in ternary polymer blends

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA
² CEA Service de Chimie Moléculaire, CE-SACLAY, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

Received: 9 November 1995
Accepted: 11 March 1996

Abstract

We analyze interfaces between A-righ and B-rich phases in symmetric ternary polymer blends with a non-selective C minority component. The interfacial tension σ and the interfacial thicknesses of the composition profiles of , and , L₁ and L₂, respectively, are calculated by solving the linearized equation resulting from minimizing σ as a function of the average composition of C, , with , and the net interaction per thermal energy between components A and B, . As increases the interfacial thickness increases and the interfacial tension decreases. Our results are in excellent agreement with the steady-state solution of the non-linear spinodal decomposition equations.