An effective strategy for improving the interface adhesion of the immiscible methyl vinyl silicone elastomer/thermoplastic polyurethane blends via developing a hybrid janus particle with amphiphilic brush

Abstract

Methyl vinyl silicone rubber (MVQ)/thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) blending is an efficient way to develop biomedical elastomer with high strength and chemical stability. However, the MVQ and TPU phases are immiscible with each other and the interfacial adhesion is very weak. In this research, the amphiphilic hybrid particles (PU–SiO2@PDVB-PDMS) are synthesized by grafting polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polyurethane (PU) molecular chains respectively onto two sides of SiO2@PDVB particles, which formed Janus particle compatibilizer with amphiphilic brush which can improve the interfacial adhesion via the similar molecular chain entanglement at the interface. Compared with traditional polydimethylsiloxane-polybutadiene-polyurethanes (PU-PB-PDMS) triblock copolymer compatibilizer, the MVQ/TPU blending compatibilized with this Janus particle is very stable even after annealing at 180 °C, with the average size of dispersed phase (Dn) decreasing sharply about 3.5 times under the addition of only 1 wt% content addition through solution mixing. In our opinion, this amphiphilic hybrid Janus particle will pave a new possibility to realize blending MVQ with other immiscible polymers.