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MATERIALS ENGINEERING

SEMINAR

“Electric-Field Alignment of Polymer Blends with Dispersed Nanoparticles for Mesoporous Reactive Membranes”

By

Sung Ho Yook

Purdue MSE Ph.D. Preliminary Exam

Advisor: Professor Mukerrem Cakmak

ABSTRACT

Polymer blends of two immiscible polymers show unique properties due to the combination of mechanical, electronical, and optical properties of two different materials. The morphologies of polymer blends can be droplets or bicontinuous morphologies according to the production conditions. The 3D-bicontinuous morphology are particularly interesting among the morphologies, because they can be practically applied to mesoporous polymer membranes or heterojunction photovoltaic cells. However, the bicontinuous morphologies are not stable because each polymer phase tends to reduce interfacial area between two polymers by coarsening small domains to large domains. One of the ways to stabilize bicontinuous morphologies is to add nanoparticles. Nanoparticles located either in one polymer phase or at interface can retard the coarsening process. Meanwhile, the morphology of polymer blends with nanoparticles also can be influenced by the electric fields. Nanoparticles and polymer phases can be aligned parallel to the electric field direction if two polymers and nanoparticles show the difference in dielectric constants. Therefore, the electric field effect on nanoparticles stabilized morphologies in a polymer blend must be interesting topic. In this presentation, nanoparticle stabilized polymer blends and the electric field effects on them will be discussed. The turning materials properties by aligning polymer blends with dispersed nanoparticles in the electric field also will be suggested.

Date: Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Time: 1:00 P.M.

Place: HAMP 2107