Investigation on the early and late stage phase-separation dynamics of poly(methyl methacrylate)/poly(α-methyl styrene-co-acrylonitrile) blends through rheological and scattering functions

The phase-separation behavior of poly(methyl methacrylate)/poly(α-methyl styrene-co-acrylonitrile) (PMMA/α-MSAN) blends with two different compositions was studied by time-resolved small angle light scattering (SALS) in the spinodal decomposition (SD) regime from 160 to 210 °C. The rheological function (WLF-like equation) was introduced into the processing of light scattering data. It was found that the WLF-like equation was applicable to describe the temperature dependence of apparent diffusion coefficient Dapp and the relaxation time τ of normalized scattering intensity (I(t)−I(0))/(Im−I(0)) at the early stage of SD, as well as the relaxation time τ of maximum scattering intensity Im and characteristic scattering vector qm with Im at the late stage of SD for PMMA/α-MSAN blends with two different compositions. This is in consistence with the phase-separation behavior of PMMA/SAN reported in our previous paper.