EFFECT OF ELECTRON BEAM RADIATION ON MORPHOLOGY AND PROPERTIES OF PS/PVMETWO PHASE BLENDS

The main objective of the present work was to study the effect of electron beam radiation on the morphology stabilization and properties of polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl methyl ether (PVME) blends both in single and two-phase state, formed during spinodal decomposition process. Morphology development in particular, the domain growth rate of PVME dispersed phase was studied by using optical microscopy. The increasing rate of the interphase thickness resulted from interdiffusion of the samples produced by melt mixing was studied by differential scanning calorimetry. Radiochemistry and Flory-Rhener analysis were performed to determine the cross-link density of samples. The cross-link density of the interphase was measured using FTIR. A combination of thermal analysis techniques and physical properties measurement were used to study the effect of electron beam radiation dose on morphology stabilization due to interfacial modification and properties of both single and two-phase polymer blends. The phase separation rate of PS/PVME miscible blend was found to be a power law type function of separation time with an exponent 0.77. The interphase growth rate was found to be about 3.5 nm.min-1. It was demonstrated that the irradiation process can play significant role in stabilization of PS/PVME blend morphology through immobilization of interphase resulting from copolymerization and/or cross-linking.