Elasticity dominated surface segregation of small molecules in polymer mixtures

TL;DR

This paper investigates how elasticity influences the surface segregation of small molecules in polymer mixtures, revealing that increased rigidity reduces migration and offering a new control method for industrial applications.

Contribution

It introduces a free energy model incorporating elasticity to predict surface migration behavior in polymer mixtures, highlighting the impact of material rigidity.

Findings

Surface migration decreases with increased sample rigidity.

Elasticity significantly affects small molecule surface segregation.

The effect is observable in rubber-like materials.

Abstract

We study the phenomenon of migration of the small molecular weight component of a binary polymer mixture to the free surface using mean field and self-consistent field theories. By proposing a free energy functional that incorporates polymer-matrix elasticity explicitly, we compute the migrant volume fraction and show that it decreases significantly as the sample rigidity is increased. Estimated values of the bulk modulus suggest that the effect should be observable experimentally for rubber-like materials. This provides a simple way of controlling surface migration in polymer mixtures and can play an important role in industrial formulations, where surface migration often leads to decreased product functionality.