Morphology of the transparent IPN‐like system PE: (BMA‐co‐S)

In the study of interpenetrating polymer networks (IPN)‐like systems consisting of polyethylene (PE) and butyl methacrylate (BMA)–styrene (S) copolymer PE/(BMA‐co‐S), the effect of the crosslinker on the morphology of IPN by using electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) was investigated. The IPN‐like system PE/(BMA‐co‐S) represents a two‐phase system with finely dispersed domains of crosslinked PE matrix. The interphase between dispersed domains and PE matrix is inhomogeneous and is considered the most interpenetrated part of this IPN‐like system. The size of the domains decreases with the content of crosslinker used. The AFM micrographs allowed the observation of PE lamellae with lengths of about 25 nm. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 81: 2615–2620, 2001