A dissipative particle dynamics study on the compatibilizing process of immiscible polymer blends with graft copolymers

The dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) is used to study the compatibilizing process of an immiscible polymer blend using a graft copolymer as a compatibilizer. Polystyrene (PS) and polyamide 6 (PA6) are chosen as the polymer components of the blend. The graft copolymer is composed of PS as the backbone and PA6 as the grafts. Mesoscale morphology, density distribution, end-to-end distance of PA6 and interfacial tension are investigated. Simulations show that the presence of a graft copolymer contributes to the formation of finer and more uniform dispersed domains by preventing them from collision and coalescence. In the presence of a graft copolymer, the density distribution is more uniform and the dynamic equilibrium of the blend morphology is reached more rapidly. For a given backbone and number of grafts per backbone, the compatibilizing efficiency of the graft copolymer first increases with increasing graft length. However, when the graft length exceeds a certain value, it starts decreasing. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.