Structural – Morphological relative study of polyphenylene oxide and polystyrene (PS: PPO) polymer blends

Abstract

The objective of this research paper is to compare the structural and morphological characteristic of polymer blends of Poly (Phenylene Oxide) (PPO) and Poly (Styrene) (PS). A polymer blend is a mixture of two or more polymers that have been blended together to generate a new material with different physical properties. PPO and PS have a chance to give complementary properties to each other and hence there is a huge interest in studying the PPO: PS polymer blends. With these objectives, the present work focuses on the synthesis and characterization of polymer blends of polyphenylene oxide (PPO) and Polystyrene (PS). The Polymer blends of Poly (Phenylene Oxide) (PPO) and Poly (Styrene) (PS) has been prepared using solution casting technique. The pure polymeric samples and their blends PS:PPO in the ratio 95:05; 90:10; 85:15; and 80:20 of their weight percentage has been prepared. The prepared polymer blends were characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques for their structural characteristics, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were undertaken for their surface morphological studies. It is found that, the interplanar distance, crystallite size and the order of crystallinity is maximum for 10 wt. % of PPO. The morphology of blends shows that PPO and PS are miscible with each other.