Influence of PMMA brushes grafted from GO on rheological properties of PMMA/SAN immiscible blend in shear and elongation flow

In real technological processes, both shear and elongational flow is present. The material properties may differ significantly under both types of flow. Hence, they both define the final morphology and thus properties of the materials. In this work, the morphology of immiscible blends containing polymer hybrid particles was related to extensional rheological properties for the first time. The effect of various lengths of polymer brushes grafted from graphene oxide particles (GO) surface was investigated. As a polymer matrix the immiscible blend of poly(methyl methacrylate)/styrene-co-acrylonitrile (PMMA/SAN) was used. Thus the poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) brushes grafted from GO (GO-g-PMMA) with various number average molar masses (Mn) of PMMA brushes with respect to chain entanglement limit of freely dispersed PMMA were prepared. The extensional rheological properties were affected by Mn of PMMA brushes, while the rheological properties in shear were unchanged. Transmission electron microscopy revealed the compatibilization effect for short densely grafted brushes with Mn of 10,300 g/mol, as smaller domains were observed. On the contrary, the higher Mn PMMA brushes facilitated coalescence. With increasing length of brushes, the elongational viscosity at low elongation rates (∼< 0.1 s−1) decreased, which facilitated the coalescence. The increase of viscosity at higher elongation rates (∼> 0.1 s−1) was not sufficient enough to cause fiber breakup and thus elongated domains were formed.