APS Logo

Solvent induced phase behavior of binary polymer-grafted nanoparticle blends

ORAL

Abstract

Polymer-grafted nanoparticles (PGNPs) have attracted much attention in recent years for their potential applications, from nanoelectronics to tough materials with tunable enhanced mechanical properties. However, recent study of poly (methyl methacrylate) silica (PMMA-SiO2) and poly(styrene) silica (PS-SiO2) blends reveal that thermal annealing cannot coarsen the phase separation of large PGNPs, due to the lack of mobility of the large masses involved. This can be resolved through liquid-enabled phase-separation as a facile approach. To this end, we developed a method to coarsen the in-plane and out-of-plane surface patterns, to over 3 and 20 times respectively, by using a direct solvent immersion annealing (DIA) method. By varying the solvents in the DIA solution, interchangeable phase-separated and homogeneous blend morphologies are formed, and the magnitude of the phase separated surface patterns are in the order of the interfacial tension relative to surface tension, similar to homopolymer melt mixtures. Depth profiling by ToF-SIMS reveals that the switchable phase separation state persists within the films. Such homopolymer matrix free PGNP-only blend systems are novel, and these switchable transitions are not readily obtainable by thermal annealing.

–

Presenters

  • Wenjie Wu

    Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, University of Houston, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston

Authors

  • Wenjie Wu

    Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, University of Houston, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston

  • Maninderjeet Singh

    University of Houston, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston

  • Xiaoteng Wang

    Department of Polymer Engineering, University of Akron

  • Yue Zhai

    Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

  • Zongyu Wang

    Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University

  • Tanguy Terlier

    Rice University, Shared Equipment Authority (SEA), Rice University, Shared Equipment Authority, Rice University, Shared Equipment Authority, SIMS Laboratory, Rice University, Shared Equipment Authority, SIMS laboratory, Rice University

  • Krzysztof Matyjaszewski

    Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University

  • Michael R Bockstaller

    Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

  • Alamgir Karim

    University of Houston, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Polymer, NIST, Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, S333 Engineering, 4726 Calhoun Rd, Houston, TX, University of Houston, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston