Structure and thermodynamics in polymer blends. Neutron scattering measurements on blends of poly(methyl methacrylate) and poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile)

Abstract Neutron scattering on polymer blends of deutero-poly(methyl methacrylate) (D-PMMA) and poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) with 19 wt% acrylonitrile (PSAN-19) exhibits excess scattering for scattering vectors Q≲0.2 nm−1 if the volume fraction of D-PMMA is less than 0.5 and greater than 0.05. The range of occurrence and the amount of excess scattering depends to a certain degree on the procedure of sample preparation. If the excess scattering is eliminated by linear extrapolation from large to small Q in the Zimm representation, the residual scattering intensity in the small and intermediate Q-range can be interpreted by the mean field approach of de Gennes with a concentration-dependent…