6533b835fe1ef96bd129fd8e

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Phase separation of symmetric polymer mixtures in a common good solvent in the semidilute concentration regime

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description

Monte Carlo simulations of lattice models of binary (AB) symmetric polymer mixtures (chain lengthsN A=N B=N) in a common good solvent are carried out and the phase diagrams and critical properties of the unmixing transitions are estimated and interpreted in terms of recent theories. Polymers are modeled by self-avoiding walks of lengthN=16, 32 and 64 on the simple cubic lattice. Data for vacancy concentrations of φV=0.6, 0.8 and 0.85 are analyzed. It is shown that forN=16, φV=0.85 no phase separation occurs, down to the lowest temperature, while forN=32, φV=0.85 still phase separation occurs but no longer is complete. Our results are compatible with a scaling theory based on a “renormalization” of the Flory-Huggins ϰ-parameter due to “blob” effects.