Fereshteh Karkhaneh Yousefi - Department of Polymer Engineering and Color Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology, ۴۲۴ Hafez Ave, Tehran, Iran, P. O. Box: ۱۵۸۷۵-۴۴۱۳
Fatemeh Goharpey

Attempts have been made to study the influence of the addition of a block copolymer, a Styrene-b-Ethylene-Butylene-b-Styrene grafted with maleic anhydride (SEBS-MA), as a compatibilizer on the interfacial tension between two immiscible polymers, Polystyrene and Polyamide 6. For this purpose, the interfacial tension was measured by the breaking thread method as a function of compatibilizer concentration in a system consisting of Polyamide 6 and Polystyrene as thread and matrix, respectively. By measuring the time evolution of thread dimensions, Tomotika theory and Tjahjadi’s et al. numerical simulation, which describe the evolution of disturbances on the thread surface, were applied to determine interfacial tension of PS/PA6 with and without compatibilizer. The value obtained for the interfacial tension of the PS/PA6 system, 5.68±0.5 mN/m, was in a good agreement with the ones reported in the literature. As expected, for the compatibilized systems, a rather steep reduction of interfacial tension with incorporation of small amounts of SEBS-g-MA was observed. This finding was attributed to the compatibilizing effect of block copolymer. Also considering the limitations of the mentioned theories, the accuracy of the results was discussed. Finally, the conditions required to infer an accurate value of interfacial tension between two polymers in the presence of a compatibilizer, using breaking thread method was concluded.

Interfacial Tension, Compatibilizer, Breaking Thread Method