A New Modified Emulsion Model for Immiscible Binary Polymeric Blends Containing Nanoparticles Distributed in Droplets

Hypothesis:

 Palierne emulsion model is usually used to investigate the rheology-morphology correlation for immiscible polymer blends by droplet-matrix morphology. The Palierne model describes the linear viscoelastic behavior of emulsions and suspensions properly only when the dispersed phase volume fraction is not high. In the case of nanocomposites, the Palierne model cannot predict the experimental data due to the interactions between the nanoparticles. Therefore, researchers modified Palierne emulsion model by considering the shear amplification rate effect and stress amplification rate effect for nanocomposites. However, modified Palierne models could not predict the complex modulus of binary polymeric blends containing nanoparticles due to the complexity of these systems.

A new model is proposed using a suitable combinative method to predict the complex modulus of binary polymer blends with nanoparticles localized in the droplets phase. The proposed model considers particle-particle interaction, polymer-particle interaction and droplets crowding effect. On the other hand, for the validation of the proposed model, a poly(styrene)/poly(methyl methacrylate) polymer blend was prepared in the presence of 1 wt% CNT by melt mixing method.

The morphology was characterized as dispersed PS droplets within the PMMA matrix, and the transmission electron microscopy results indicated that the CNT was localized in the droplet phase. The validation results of the proposed model were more consistent with the experimental data compared to other modified Palierne models, and the parameters obtained from the proposed model provided more details on viscoelastic properties such as droplet phase-nanoparticles interfacial tension, disperse droplets crowding effect, nanoparticles amplification rate, and nanocomposite interfacial tension.