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High-pressure light scattering apparatus to study pressure-induced phase separation in polymer solutions

1998; American Institute of Physics; Volume: 69; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1063/1.1148782

1527-2400

Yan Xiong, Erdoǧan Kiran,

Block Copolymer Self-Assembly

A new high-pressure time- and angle-resolved light scattering apparatus has been developed to study the kinetics of phase separation in polymer solutions and other fluid mixtures under pressure at near- and supercritical conditions. The system consists of a high-pressure polymer loading chamber, a solvent charge line, a variable-volume scattering cell (with a built-in movable piston connected to a pressure generator, and an expansion rod driven by an air-actuated diaphragm), and a recirculation pump which are all housed in a temperature-controlled oven. The system is operable at pressures up to 70 MPa, and temperatures up to 473 K. The scattering cell is a short path-length cell made of two flat sapphire windows that are separated by 250 μm. It is designed to permit measurements of transmitted and scattered light intensities over an angle range from 0° to 30°. A linear image sensor with 256 elements is used to monitor the time evolution of the scattered light intensities at different angles. With this sensor, the angle range from 2° to 13° is scanned at a sampling rate of 3.2 ms/scan. The pressure quenches are achieved by movement of the air-actuated movable expansion rod, or by the movement of the piston with the aid of the pressure generator to bring about either rapid (at rates approaching 2000 MPa/s) or slow pressure changes in the system. Quench depth is also adjustable, and very deep (70 MPa) or very shallow (as low as 0.1 MPa) pressure quenches are readily achievable. The temperature and the pressure of the solution in the scattering cell, and the transmitted and scattered light intensities at different angles are recorded in real time through a computerized data acquisition system before and during phase separation. The experimental system is especially suited to follow the kinetics of phase separation in polymer solutions and to assess the metastable and unstable regions where phase separation proceeds by the nucleation and growth, and the spinodal decomposition mechanisms, respectively. The capability of the instrument is demonstrated for polystyrene/methylcyclohexane solutions.