MODEL EXPERIMENTS FOR THE INTERFACIAL REACTION BETWEEN POLYMERS DURING REACTIVE POLYMER BLENDING

Bilayer film Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) model experiments are designed to provide a well-defined interface for study which can be probed by infrared spectroscopy during the interdiffusion and reaction of two reactive polymers. This provides a model experiment to determine the kinetics and extent of reaction between functionalized polymers during reactive polymer blending. This type of experiment provides data on the reaction at a stagnant interface which is necessary for the analysis of the interface while it is simultaneously undergoing deformation. It is also useful as a screening or preliminary experiment on reactive blending systems in that the extent of reaction may be followed for different systems at different temperatures. Experiments reported here trace the reaction of a styrenemaleic anhydride copolymer with two different amine terminated polymers. Results are obtained for the interdiffusion and reaction of a styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer with two amine terminated polymers: a butadiene-acrylonitrile copolymer and Nylon 11. The kinetics from these experiments include contributions due to both interdiffusion and chemical reaction. The chemical reaction kinetics may be isolated from the diffusion kinetics by performing experiments on well-mixed systems which are prepared by casting films of the polymer mixtures from a mutual solvent. (C) 1994 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.