Development of an immiscible polymer/polymer/nanoparticle system in order to study the location of nanoparticles at polymer/polymer interface by quantitative optical microscopy

Abstract

In the past ten years, stabilization of the phase morphology of immiscible polymer blends during melt compounding went through a new perspective by the use of inorganic nanoparticles as compatibilizers. Following the ideas of Ramsden and Pickering, the stabilization of the minor phase in immiscible polymer blends could be achieved with solid nanoparticles located at the interface of the phases, lowering the interfacial tension and acting as a physical barrier to droplet coalescence. In this work, the location of the silica nanoparticle in an immiscible polymer blend is studied using quantitative optical microscopy, measuring the total light scattering, i.e. turbidity, created by the use of hydrophilic and hydrophobic silica nanoparticles (hi-silica and hb-silica, respectively) in an immiscible polymer blend. The light scattering at the polymer/polymer interface is minimized choosing a PS/PC immiscible blend which has minimal difference in their refractive indices. On the other hand, the considerable difference in the refractive index of the chosen polymers and nanosilica would highlight the scattering effect of the silica nanoparticles if located at the polymer/polymer interface. The transmitted light intensity from neat PS/PC blends and some PS/PC/hl-silica systems were similar, showing only a small change in the range of the glass transition temperatures of the two polymers, which is an indication that the silica nanoparticles are dispersed inside the two polymer phases. However, the transmitted light intensity is greatly changed in the system PS/PC/hb-silica, containing the hydrophobic silica, which according to the wetting parameter should have the silica nanoparticles located mainly at the polymer/polymer interface.