Miscible blends comprising two carbonyl-containing polymers.: Poly(ε-caprolactone) with poly(benzyl methacrylate)

Differential scanning calorimetry, optical microscopy, and infrared spectroscopy were perfomed to characterize poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL)/poly(benzyl methacrylate) (PBzMA) blend of full compositions. The binary polymer mixture of all compositions forms a true miscible blend with a homogeneous phase structure attributed to matched polarity. The thermal transition behavior suggests that: the intermolecular interactions between the pairs are likely non-specific and only comparable with those among the homapolymer molecules. The FT-IR results infers that inter-molecular mixing in segmental scales does exist, although: the segmental scales are not particularly fine and some minor homomolecular aggregation might be present. It is concluded that the blend phase behavior is miscibility with non-specific, mostly being of a matched polarity, intermolecular interactions. Upon heating, phase separation occurs via ina binodal nucleation & growth (NG) mechanism at above 240 degrees C. The phase separation phenomenon is attributed to a cause of thermodynamic lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior. Upon cooling at regularly reasonable rates, phase separation could be reversed back to original homogeneity of miscibility.