Morphological control of porous ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer membrane obtained from a co‐continuous ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer/poly(ϵ‐caprolactone) blend |
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Authors: | Defeng Wu Jie Zhang Weidong Zhou Zhen Yao Ming Zhang Dongpo Lin Jianghong Wang |
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Affiliation: | 1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangzhou University, , Jiangsu, 225002 PR China;2. Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Material and Engineering, , Jiangsu, 225002 PR China;3. Testing Center, Yangzhou University, , Jiangsu 225002 PR China |
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Abstract: | Ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA)/poly(?‐caprolactone) (PCL) blend (50/50 w/w) with co‐continuous morphology was prepared via melt mixing for fabricating microporous EVA membrane materials through selective solvent extraction. Shear flow and quiescent annealing techniques were employed to control co‐continuous phase size in the EVA/PCL blend, and the time‐ and temperature‐dependent relations of phase size were then evaluated theoretically. Using these techniques, microporous EVA membrane materials with various pore sizes ranging from 2 µm to more than 200 µm were obtained. In contrast to the porous EVA membrane prepared by the traditional way of solvent casting/particulate leaching, the as‐obtained microporous membrane shows a higher level of interconnectivity and much narrower pore size distribution with uniform pore structure. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry |
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Keywords: | ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer poly(ϵ ‐caprolactone) blend porous membrane co‐continuous morphology |
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