Rheology and morphology development in concentrated blends: from bulk to confined conditions.

Emulsions and blends are ubiquitous and occur in a whole range of products such as pharmaceuticals, food products, cosmetics, and advanced plastics in the case of polymeric blends. The properties of immiscible polymer blends and emulsions do not only depend on the component properties, but also on the phase morphology. Consequently, understanding the relationships between flow conditions during processing, flow-induced microstructure and rheology is essential for optimal product design, especially for concentrated blends. The objective of the project is to gain fundamental insight in the morphology development and the rheology of concentrated polymer blends in bulk as well as in confined shear flow. A dedicated optical setup will be developed for the visualization of droplet dynamics in concentrated blends. In addition, a recently developed microgap rheometer will be used to study the blend rheology under conditions ranging from bulk to gap sizes on the order of the droplet size. Phenomenological models for the dynamics of single droplets will be extended to take into account the effects of droplet interactions. The newly developed models will then be used to derive microstructure-based rheological models for concentrated blends in bulk and confined shear flow.

Keywords:Rheology, Confinement, Morphology, Polymer blend, Concentrated blend, Confocal microscopy, Microgap rheometer, Phenomenological models

Disciplines:Catalysis and reacting systems engineering, Chemical product design and formulation, General chemical and biochemical engineering, Process engineering, Separation and membrane technologies, Transport phenomena, Other (bio)chemical engineering, Polymeric materials