Prediction of the Phase Behaviour of Hydrogen-Bonded Polymer Blends

Michael M. Coleman; Paul C. Painter

doi:10.1071/CH06132

REVIEW

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Prediction of the Phase Behaviour of Hydrogen-Bonded Polymer Blends

Michael M. Coleman ^A ^B and Paul C. Painter ^A

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.

^B Corresponding author. Email: mmc4@psu.edu

Although Professor Coleman is rumored to have retired from the Pennsylvania State University in 2002 with Emeritus rank after 27 years of teaching and research, there are many (including his wife) who do not believe it! He is still actively collaborating with his colleague Paul Painter writing and developing polymer science books and CDs.

Paul Painter is a Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Pennsylvania State University. He has published more than 200 papers on various subjects in the field of polymer vibrational spectroscopy, polymer blends, and coal chemistry. In collaboration with Mike Coleman, he has also published three textbooks and three CDs.

Australian Journal of Chemistry 59(8) 499-507 https://doi.org/10.1071/CH06132
Submitted: 21 April 2006 Accepted: 6 July 2006 Published: 8 September 2006

Abstract

In the early 1990s your authors believed that they had essentially solved the problem of predicting the phase behaviour of hydrogen-bonded polymer blends. A text devoted to this subject, Specific Interactions and the Miscibility of Polymer Blends, was published and we thought that it was now time to look around for something else to do. This was before a colleague, Boris Veytsman, pointed out that there was a flaw in our derivation of the free energy of mixing equation. It has taken us some 15 years to correct the theory and match the predictions of the phase behaviour of hydrogen-bonded blends that we presented in our 1991 book. So we have come full circle. The subject has become far more complicated, but at the same time far more interesting. Along the way we have discovered that the phase behaviour of hydrogen-bonded polymer blends can be successfully predicted using equilibrium constants determined from appropriate low molecular weight analogues, if chain connectivity effects such as intermolecular screening and functional group accessibility are included.

Acknowledgments

Anyone who knows the authors will immediately recognize that they could not possibly have done any of the hard work described in this review! These results were accomplished on the backs of our many graduate students, postdocs, and faculty associates, and we will be forever grateful that they had the patience to put up with us. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the financial support that we have had over many years from the National Science Foundation, Polymers Program.

References

Prediction of the Phase Behaviour of Hydrogen-Bonded Polymer Blends

Abstract

Acknowledgments

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