Theories of the Effects of Copolymer Addition on the Interfacial Tension between Polymer Blend Components: A Review

This review discusses methods for calculating the equilibrium interfacial tension in strongly immiscible polymer blends compatibilized with copolymers. The discussion is focused on typical polymer blends with fine phase structures; in these polymer blends, the volume of the interfacial layer is generally not negligible with respect to the volume of the bulk phases. The main models and calculation procedures that are predominantly used are compared, and their practicalities are discussed. Neither the expressions derived using the dry brush approximation nor those derived using the wet brush approximation are applicable to blends compatibilized with copolymers that have block lengths comparable to those of the compatibilized homopolymers. The amount of a copolymer in the interfacial layer of a polymer blend is generally not negligible with respect to its amount in the bulk phases. Therefore, approximations that are successfully used for the calculation of the interfacial tension measured by common methods cannot be applied to calculation of the interfacial tension in the polymer blends.