Effects of molecular weight of polysulfone on phase separation behavior for cyanate ester/polysulfone blends

Abstract

The effects of molecular weight of polysulfone (PSF) on the morphology of bisphenol-A dicyanate (BADCy)/PSF blends were studied. Because the viscosity of the blend increased and the miscibility between BADCy and PSF decreased with the increase of PSF molecular weight, these two competing effects on the phase-separation were investigated. It was observed that the effect of viscosity was predominant: the viscosity of the blends at the onset point of phase separation increased with the increase of PSF molecular weight. The phase separation mechanism depends on the viscosity of the blends at the onset point of phase separation and determines the morphology of the blends. Because the increasing viscosity with increasing the molecular weight of PSF suppressed the nucleation and growth even with 10 phr of PSF content, phase separation occurred through spinodal decomposition to form the combined morphology having both PSF particle structure and BADCy particle structure. The combined morphology and the BADCy particle structure were obtained with a smaller amount of high molecular weight PSF content. This indicates that the viscosity of the blends at the onset point of phase separation is the critical parameter that determines the morphology of the blends. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 77: 921–927, 2000