Miscible blends composed of bisphenol-A polycarbonate (PC) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), in which one of them has low molecular weight, were employed to study the surface segregation behavior during flow. The blend samples showed typical rheological behaviors, such as simple polymer melts without a long-time relaxation mechanism ascribed to phase separation, demonstrating that they were miscible. After injection molding, the amounts of a low molecular weight component on the blend surface were found to be larger than the actual blend ratio. Because the injection-molded products were transparent despite a huge difference in refractive indices between PC and PMMA, they showed no phase separation. This result demonstrated that surface segregation of a low molecular weight component occurred under flow field, which expands the material design such as tough plastics with good scratch resistance and optical fibers with tapered refractive index.
Keywords: injection molding; poly(methyl methacrylate); polycarbonate; polymer blends; segregation; viscoelastic properties.