Miscibility studies of binary and ternary mixtures of tactic poly(methyl methacrylates) with poly(vinylidene chloride‐co‐acrylonitrile)

Isotactic, atactic, and syndiotactic poly(methyl methacrylates) (i, a, and s PMMAs) were mixed with poly(vinylidene chloride‐co‐acrylonitrile) (Saran F) separately in tetrahydrofuran to make three polymer blend systems. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used mainly to study the miscibility of these blends. iPMMA and aPMMA were found to be miscible with Saran F based on the transparency and a single glass transition temperature (T_g) of the films. However, sPMMA was immiscible with Saran F because of the observation of two T_gs and opacity in most compositions of the blend. aPMMA is known to be miscible with sPMMA. Therefore aPMMA is both miscible with Saran F and sPMMA but Saran F and sPMMA are immiscible. Preliminary results of the effect of adding of aPMMA to immiscible sPMMA and Saran F mixtures were also reported. First, binary mixtures of atactic and syndiotactic PMMAs were also prepared and confirmed to be miscible. Elevation of T_g of the aPMMA/sPMMA blend above weight average was observed probably due to stereocomplexation occurred between aPMMA and sPMMA. Then ternary blends of atactic and syndiotactic PMMAs and Saran F in the weight ratios of about 3/1/4, 2/2/4, and 1/3/4 were also measured calorimetrically. A single T_g was observed for these three compositions different from two T_gs detected in the sPMMA/Saran F (50.0/50.0, i.e., 4/4) blend. Obviously, the composition of Saran was fixed in the ternary blends. When the other half of the blends was changing from pure sPMMA to sPMMA and aPMMA mixture, the blends became miscible because of the addition of aPMMA. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 75: 1313–1321, 2000