| Heteropolymers with Adjustable Monomer Sequences (HAMS) as Compatibilizers for Homopolymer Blends | ||
| Ravish Malik, Carol K. Hall and Jan Genzer, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, North Carolina State University, 911 Partners Way, Raleigh, NC 27695-7905 Heteropolymers with adjustable monomer sequences (HAMS), which are also called protein-like copolymers represent a new type of functional copolymer, exhibiting large-scale compositional heterogeneities and long-range correlations between monomer units. HAMs were first introduced by Khokhlov and coworkers who used computer simulations to demonstrate that random copolymers with tunable monomer sequences could, in principle , be generated by adjusting the compactness of a parent homopolymer (A) , and then converting selected segments on the polymer surface into B segments by reacting them with species in the surrounding solution. In this talk we describe the results of a computer simulations study aimed at supporting the development of HAMS as compatibilizing agents for homopolymer blends. Large-scale discontinuous molecular dynamics simulations are used to explore how changes in polymer length, compatibilizer sequence and temperature affect phase separation kinetics and thermodynamics. The results are compared to those for systems in which the compatibilizers are block, random, and random-block copolymers. Extended Abstract Status: Not Uploaded | ||