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Semiflexible polymer nanocomposites: Role of stiffness on structure and macrophase separation
Journal
Materials Today: Proceedings
Date Issued
2022-01-01
Author(s)
Moinuddin, Md
Abstract
Polymer nanocomposites are lighter in weight as compared to the traditionally bigger size filler-loaded composites. Moreover, polymer nanocomposites show enhancement in properties with small fractions of nanoparticles. In certain cases, a high fraction of nanoparticles is needed to incorporate the required properties significantly. In most of the theoretical and simulation studies of polymeric systems, the polymer chain is modeled as ideal freely-jointed chains, thereby neglecting the effects of chain stiffness. We study a system of semiflexible polymers containing 50% volume fraction of nanoparticles using Polymer Reference Interaction Site Model (PRISM) theory. In the absence of chemical anisotropy, these systems undergo a disordered fluid phase to a macrophase-separated state. The phase transition of these systems is favored by an increase in the persistence length of the polymer chain. At lower values of persistence lengths, a slight increase in the persistence length results in a sharp decrease in the critical packing fraction. However, for longer persistence lengths, an increase in the persistence length barely affects the critical packing fraction. Studies of the local structure of these systems show that an increase in persistence length increases the polymer-polymer contacts and polymer-nanoparticle contacts. On the contrary, nanoparticle-nanoparticle contact initially increases suddenly, then decreases slightly at longer persistence lengths.
Volume
76
Subjects