Analysis of polymer membrane formation through spinodal decomposition. Part 4: Computer simulation of early-stage coarsening
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1996
Department
Department of Chemical Engineering
Abstract
In a previous work, an early-stage coarsening mechanism was proposed, whereby continued growth of structure (via spinodal decomposition) in a polymer-solvent system will occur because some of the polymer-rich domains are being depleted. Such a mechanism was explained based on the situation wherein portions of the solvent-rich domains have already reached their binodal composition while the polymer-rich domains are still on their way to their corresponding binodal composition. In this work, we have simulated the nonlinear version of the Cahn-Hilliard theory to verify this phenomenon. Moreover, we have observed that the depleted polymer-rich domains seem to be uniformly distributed in space. Finally, as a validation of the proposed mechanism, we did not observe this uniform depletion of the domains when portions of the solvent-rich and polymer-rich domains reach their respective binodal compositions almost simultaneously.
Publication Title
Polymer Engineering and Science
Recommended Citation
Caneba, G. T.,
&
Saxena, R.
(1996).
Analysis of polymer membrane formation through spinodal decomposition. Part 4: Computer simulation of early-stage coarsening.
Polymer Engineering and Science,
36(2), 288-297.
http://doi.org/10.1002/pen.10415
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p/3828