Phase Segregation in Multicomponent Polymer Blends

9509838奥尔韦拉-德拉克鲁斯 本计画研究三元聚合物共混物之相分离现象。 三元混合物可以分解成两相或三相。 研究人员正在研究分离过程的动力学，当混合物对两相的形成是不稳定的，而对第三相的形成是稳定的、亚稳定的和/或不稳定的时。 这项工作将二维对称三元共混物的初步工作扩展到三维非对称共混物。 她还将研究三元体系中两相之间的平衡界面分布。 当前在理解聚合物混合物方面的许多理论努力涉及这样的过程，即首先完全混合的分子形成类似聚合物保持紧密结合的结构。 例如，这发生在对温度下降的反应中。 这些分离相的精确尺度和形状有时是蠕虫状结构，称为微观结构，是这些材料的许多特性的原因。 从业者寻求了解如何获得他们认为将提供所需特性的特定微观结构。 这项研究适合于这一领域的第一个超越以往的研究二元（两组分）共混物，三组分（三元）共混物。 实际系统几乎总是由两个以上的组件组成，因此这项工作与真实的材料特别相关。 ***

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. ***