Polymer Engineering Faculty Research

Destruction of Short-Range Order in Polycarbonate/Ionomer Blends

Robert Weiss, The University of Akron

Abstract

Spin polarized neutron scattering was used to study the short-range order in partially miscible blends of bisphenol A polycarbonate (PC) and lightly sulfonated polystyrene ionomers (SPS). The blends exhibited upper critical solution temperature phase behavior. In the two-phase region of the polymer blend, the short-range order for PC persisted. However, in the miscible, one-phase region, there was a significant reduction of the short-range order of the PC as a result of intimate mixing of the polymers.