Structure-property relationships in waterborne colloidal elastomers.

In this thesis the competition between crystallisation and coalescence during the film formation of semi-crystalline polymers has been investigated. Two scenarios of film formation for semi-crystalline polymers have been proposed depending on the relative rates of crystallinity and coalescence. Experimental results have shown evidence for both scenarios depending on the film formation conditions. Additionally, it has been shown that it is possible to transition between scenarios after film formation using a heat treatment process. Blending of semi-crystalline and amorphous polymers has been shown to provide intermediate mechanical properties than the two constituent materials. This has held true for blends of the same species of polymer and blends of different polymer species. It has been shown that blending colloidal polymers can be used to tune the properties of the resulting film in order to achieve intermediate mechanical properties when compared to the constituent materials. The leaching behaviour of coagulant dipped films has been investigated. In addition to the expected surfactant leaching, a variety of other molecules have been identified using SIMS. All of the constituent monomers have been identified leading to the conclusion that it is likely that oligomer chains are leached from the film in addition to surfactant.