Abstract
The influence of morphology on the rheological properties of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and natural rubber-graft-poly(methyl methacrylate) (NR-g-PMMA) blends in the melt was investigated. The blends were prepared at different blend compositions by a solution-casting method. Linear viscoelastic shear oscillations measurements were performed in order to determine the elastic and viscous properties of the blends in the melt. The rheological results suggested that the blending of the two constituents reduced the elasticity and viscosity of the blends. The addition of an even small amount of NR-g-PMMA to PEO changed the liquid-like behavior of PEO to more solid-like behavior. Morphological investigations were carried out by optical microscopy to establish the relationship between morphology and melt viscosity. Depending on the blend compositions and viscosities, either droplet–matrix or co-continuous morphologies was observed. PEO/NR-g-PMMA blends exhibited a broad co-continuity range, and phase inversion was suggested to occur at the PEO/NR-g-PMMA blend with a mass ratio of 60/40 (m/m), when NR-g-PMMA was added to PEO as a matrix.
Highlights
Polymer blends have drawn marked attention over years in producing suitable materials by mixing polymers for specific applications, which may be cheaper and provide less time of production than the development of new monomers or new polymerization routes [1,2]
One of the widely used polymer hosts in solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) is poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) due to a large variety of inorganic salts that are soluble in PEO [5,6] in the molten state or in the amorphous phase of high-molar-mass PEO at room temperature
NR-g-PMMA was purified through the removal of macrogel with simple filtration using a nylon filter with an approximately 1-μm pore size and the removal of homopolymers using the selective extraction of homopolymers from the graft copolymer
Summary
Polymer blends have drawn marked attention over years in producing suitable materials by mixing polymers for specific applications, which may be cheaper and provide less time of production than the development of new monomers or new polymerization routes [1,2]. One of the widely used polymer hosts in SPEs is poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) due to a large variety of inorganic salts that are soluble in PEO [5,6] in the molten state or in the amorphous phase of high-molar-mass PEO at room temperature. Adding a second component to high-molar-mass PEO (i.e., polymer blending) may improve the ionic conductivity of systems in comparison to those of PEO/salt systems at room temperature [4,11,12,13,14]. It is of vital importance to have more insight on PEO-based binary blends before the elucidation of the properties of the ternary systems of PEO-based blends with the addition of inorganic salt
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