New models to explore the microstructure of polymer mixtures

A well-known method for making polymer materials is to blend or mix multiple polymers. For disperse blends, two liquid polymers do not mix well with each other, leading to a so-called droplet-in-matrix microstructure which is similar to emulsions of oil and water. The material properties of the polymer blend depend on the final microstructure, so the material properties can be tuned during processing history. However, conclusively connecting the final microstructure to the processing history with numerical models is the subject of ongoing research. For his Ph.D. research, Wing-Hin Wong extended and improved existing numerical models to better describe this connection.


Click here for original story, New models to explore the microstructure of polymer mixtures


Source: Phys.org