Abstract
We explored the effects of the repulsion parameter () and chain length (NHA or NHB) of homopolymers on the interfacial properties of An/Ax/2BxAx/2/Bm ternary polymeric blends using dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations. Our simulations show that: (i) The ternary blends exhibit the significant segregation at the repulsion parameter ( = 40). (ii) Both the interfacial tension and the density of triblock copolymer at the center of the interface increase to a plateau with increasing the homopolymer chain length, which indicates that the triblock copolymers with shorter chain length exhibit better performance as the compatibilizers for stabilizing the blends. (iii) For the case of NHA = 4 (chain length of homopolymers An) and NHB (chain length of homopolymers Bm) ranging from 16 to 64, the blends exhibit larger interfacial widths with a weakened correlation between bead An and Bm of homopolymers, which indicates that the triblock copolymer compatibilizers (Ax/2BxAx/2) show better performance in reducing the interfacial tension. The effectiveness of triblock copolymer compatibilizers is, thus, controlled by the regulation of repulsion parameters and the homopolymer chain length. This work raises important considerations concerning the use of the triblock copolymer as compatibilizers in the immiscible homopolymer blend systems.
Highlights
Improving the performance of polymer materials in scientific and industrial applications can be achieved by mixing different components with complementary properties [1,2]
We investigated the effects of the repulsion parameter and chain length of the homopolymers on the interfacial properties of ternary An/Ax/2BxAx/2/Bm polymeric blends using dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations
By comparing the interfacial tension and the density distribution of the triblock copolymers of the A8/A2B4A2/B8 and A8/A7B14A7/B8 blends at different repulsion parameters, we find that at a repulsion parameter, the ternary blends exhibit the maximum segregation with lower interfacial tension and stronger adhesion
Summary
Improving the performance of polymer materials in scientific and industrial applications can be achieved by mixing different components with complementary properties [1,2]. Guo et al employed DPD simulation to investigate the interfacial properties of A2/A2B8/B2 and A2/A2B8/B10 ternary mixtures [1]. They found that swelling is responsible for the stretching and orienting of the diblock copolymers chains and the reduced interfacial density of copolymers. We have investigated the dependence of the interfacial properties of symmetric ternary polymeric blends on the chain length and concentration of triblock copolymer, which indicated that the triblock copolymers with shorter chain length perform a higher efficiency [29]
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