Tunable Nanostructuring of PS-b-PMMA Diblock Copolymers in Epoxy-Amine Systems via Conversion-Temperature Control

HERNÁN E. ROMEO; ILEANA A. ZUCCHI; CRISTINA E. HOPPE; ROBERTO J. J. WILLIAMS

Bogotá

Simposio; XIII Simposio Latinoamericano de Polímeros (SLAP 2012); 2012

Universidad de los Andes - Facultad de Ingeniería

Block copolymer (BC)-modified epoxy-amine systems represent a kind of versatile materials which can be employed towards the development of next-generation devices. In this study, a poly(styrene-b-methyl methacrylate) (PS-b-PMMA) diblock copolymer was employed as a modifier of an epoxy-amine system (based on diglycidylether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and 4,4´-methylene bis (2,6-diethylaniline) (MDEA)) aiming at obtaining nanostructured composites. Although a low-copolymer concentration was used (20 wt%), highly nanostructured materials (which are usually obtained in the high-concentration modifier range) were synthesized. The accessed morphologies were shown to be strongly dependent on the degree of conversion of the epoxy precursors and the temperature cycle employed (cooling or not to room temperature between cure and post-cure stages). By varying these parameters different BC motifs were obtained. In this work we demonstrate that tunable structured nanocomposites can be rendered by simply controlling the extent of curing and temperature cycle without needing changing the BC concentration.