Phase Segregation in Multicomponent Polymer Blends

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9509838 Olvera de la Cruz This project studies phase segregation in ternary polymer blends. Ternary mixtures can decompose into two or three phases. The investigator is studying the kinetics of the separation process when the mixture is unstable against the formation of two phases and stable, metastable, and/or unstable to the formation of a third phase. The work extends preliminary work on symmetric ternary blends in two dimensions into non-symmetric blends in three dimensions. She will also investigate equilibrium interfacial profiles between two phases in ternary systems. %%% Much of the current theoretical effort in understanding polymer mixtures involves the process in which molecules that were first completely mixed form structures in which like polymers stay close together. This happens, for example, in reaction to a drop in temperature. The precise scales and shapes of the sometimes wormlike structure of these separate phases, called the microstructure, is responsible for many of the properties of these materials. Practitioners seek the understanding of how to get the particular microstructure that they believe will give the desired properties. This research fits into this field by being the first to go beyond previous studies on binary (twocomponent) blends to three-component (ternary) blends. Practical systems are almost always composed of more than two components, so this work is particularly relevant to real materials. ***