Influences of nonsolvent and temperature on critical viscoelastic behaviors of ternary polyacrylonitrile solutions around the sol‐gel threshold

Abstract

AbstractViscoelastic experiments were performed to study the influence of nonsolvent and temperature on critical viscoelastic behaviors of ternary polyacrylonitrile (PAN) solutions around the sol‐gel threshold. The dynamic critical parameters around the sol‐gel threshold were determined using dynamic rheometer. The sol‐gel transition takes place at a critical gel temperature at which the scaling law of G′(ω) ∼ G″(ω) ∝ ωn holds, allowing an accurate determination of the critical gel temperature by means of the frequency independence of the loss tangent. Although the gel points of PAN solutions increase with increasing H2O content, the results show that the scaling exponent n at the gel point is found to be universal for all ternary PAN solutions, which is independent of temperature and H2O content, indicating the similarity of the fractal structure in the critical PAN gels. The gelation of ternary PAN solutions induced by adding a nonsolvent and by decreasing the temperature is demonstrated to be a thermoreversible process, which implies that the PAN gels are physical gels. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 46: 2637–2643, 2008