Preparation, structure, and properties of two‐phase co‐continuous polymer blends

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Abstract
Phase continuity has been explored as a function of composition for three two‐phase polymer blends produced by mixing in the melt: polystyrene/poly(methyl methacrylate), polystyrene/cis‐polybutadiene, and poly(methyl methacrylate)/ethylene‐propylene rubber. The condition for dual phase continuity Is the application of shear close to phase inversion and this can be predicted fairly accurately using the relation where 1 and 2 are the blend components, η is viscosity, \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$\mathop \gamma \limits^.$\end{document} is the shear rate in the mixing device used to produce the blend and ϕ is volume fraction. The co‐continuous materials, which we call Interpenetrating polymer blends (IPBs) are non‐equilibrium structures and are subject to disruption by changes in flow regime.