Eur. Phys. J. E (2009) 30: 379-385
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2009-10536-1

Regular Article

Theory of microphase separation in charged crosslinked polymer blends with arbitrary charge distribution

¹ Laboratoire de Recherches sur les Macromolecules, Faculté des Sciences, Tlemcen, Algeria
² Laboratoire de Physique des Polymères et Phénomènes Critiques, Faculté des Sciences Ben M’sik, Casablanca, Morocco

^* e-mail: benhamou.mabrouk@gmail.com

Received: 27 July 2009
Revised: 18 October 2009
Accepted: 23 October 2009
Published online: 3 December 2009

Abstract

In this paper, we are interested in the phase behavior and scattering properties of charged crosslinked polymer blends in solution. The system undergoes a microphase separation, below some critical temperature. To study such a transition, use is made of the standard de Gennes theory based on an analogy with a dielectric medium. This analogy is extended to include the effects of the initial composition fluctuations in order to improve its agreement with experimental data in the small wave vector range. The excluded-volume interactions are explicitly introduced through the blob model. The charge effects on the phase behavior are examined, for any charge distribution of polyions and for any salt concentration. This completes a previous study which was concerned with the situation where only one species is charged. The early kinetics of microphase separation is discussed, and the charges contribution to the growth rate is also evaluated.