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SUMMARY:Theory of Phase Behaviour and Fluctuations in Polydisperse Systems
 : From Carbon-fiber Composites to High-performance Membranes - Phillip Rau
 scher (Syensqo)
DTSTART:20250911T103500Z
DTEND:20250911T113500Z
UID:TALK233317@talks.cam.ac.uk
DESCRIPTION:Polymer blends are critical in many commercial products and in
 dustrial processes. For instance\, in membrane or fibre spinning\, composi
 te materials manufacturing\, and thermoplastic compounding and moulding. I
 n most circumstances\, such products are formulated with samples of high d
 ispersity\, which have generally only been studied at the mean-field level
 . In this talk\, I show how field theoretic treatments of concentration fl
 uctuations can be applied to blends of disperse polymers. This requires a 
 careful analysis of both short- and long-range correlations along with the
 rmodynamic analysis in terms of moments of the molecular weight distributi
 on(s). This powerful combination yields analytical results for the inverse
  susceptibility\, i.e. spinodal curve\, which is critical in industrial ap
 plications. We demonstrate the importance of dispersity on several example
  systems\, including both &ldquo\;toy&rdquo\; models that may be realized 
 in computer simulation and more realistic industrially relevant blends. We
  find that the effects of long-range fluctuations are particularly promine
 nt in blends where the component dispersities are mismatched\, especially 
 when there is a small quantity of the high-dispersity species. This can be
  understood as a consequence of the shift in the critical concentration(s)
  from the monodisperse value(s).
LOCATION:External
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