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Morphological studies of late‐stage spinodal decomposition in polystyrene–cyclohexanol system
Author(s) -
Guo HongFei,
Laxminarayan Anand,
Caneba Gerard T.,
Solc Karel
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.1995.070550512
Subject(s) - spinodal decomposition , polystyrene , cyclohexanol , quenching (fluorescence) , spinodal , thermodynamics , materials science , polymer , phase (matter) , miscibility , polymer chemistry , chemistry , chemical physics , optics , organic chemistry , physics , fluorescence , composite material , catalysis
We studied the late‐stage spinodal decomposition of the polystyrene–cyclohexanol system in relation to membrane formation. Phase separation was effected by the removal of thermal energy from the homogeneous polymer solution. The ultimate morphology of the phase‐separated systems has been studied using electron microscopy and has been found to be strongly affected by the quenching time. A shift from a highly interconnected open‐cell structure to a closed‐cell structure has been observed, indicating the transition of the spinodal decomposition from early to late stages. The cell growth in the late stage has been quantitatively analyzed and a power‐law relationship between the cell size and quenching time has been found. The resulting exponent of 0.61 is consistent with literature values from light‐scattering measurements, as well as from theoretical derivations. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.