Drop retraction methods to measure interfacial tension between compatibilized polymers

Sachin Velankar, Hua Zhou, Hyun Kyoung Jeon, Christopher W. Macosko

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Surface-active compatibilizers, commonly used to facilitate blending of immiscible polymers, are known to lower the interfacial tension between the immiscible polymers. Here we seek to measure the equilibrium interfacial tension of compatibilized polymer interfaces using the Imbedded Fiber Retraction Method and the Deformed Drop Retraction Method. These methods, popular for measuring the interfacial tension of uncompatibilized interfaces, are shown to give anomalous results for compatibilized interfaces. Both these methods use the kinetics of interfacial evolution to obtain interfacial tension. We employ computational fluid mechanical simulations to demonstrate that this interfacial evolution causes the local concentration of compatibilizer on the interface to deviate from the equilibrium value, leading to gradients in interfacial tension along the interface. These gradients appear to be the main reason for the errors in interfacial tension measurements noted experimentally.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages1597-1602
Number of pages6
StatePublished - 2003
Event61st Annual Technical Conference ANTEC 2003 - Nashville, TN, United States
Duration: May 4 2003May 8 2003

Other

Other61st Annual Technical Conference ANTEC 2003
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNashville, TN
Period5/4/035/8/03

Keywords

  • Compatibilizer
  • Drop retraction
  • Fiber retraction
  • Interfacial tension

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