Drying enhancement in phase separating fluids and its application

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In thin film drying process of immiscible polymer blend in a common solvent, spontaneous polymer phase separation promotes the enhancement or suppression of solvent drying in a particular range of solvent concentrations. Simultaneous mass/fluorescent intensity measurements in the course of drying revealed that the drying enhancement takes place in the case when growth rates of phase-separated domains are lower than the critical value of 20 nm/s. The fluorescent microscopy also showed the local solvent enrichment at the interface of polymer domains in drying enhancement mode. These fact imply that the self-assembly of solvent molecules at phase-separating domain interfaces results in formation of solvent diffusion path along the interface, which assists the solvent drying across the liquid film.