Rheology as a tool for the analysis of the dispersion of carbon filler in polymers

The aim of this work is to validate the use of dynamic oscillatory measurements in the melt to characterize the dispersion of a filler in a matrix after melt blending. Polyethylene oxide (PEO) is used as a polymeric matrix. Active carbon is used as a filler at a constant filler volume content of 26.4%. The melt viscosity of the polymeric matrix is varied by melt blending of two miscible POE and polyethylene glycol (PEG) species having very different molecular weight distributions. This enables to obtain various matrix viscosities and in turn various states of dispersion of the filler that were characterized by optical microscopy and image analysis. Dynamic mechanical measurements in the melt in the terminal zone show a large increase of the moduli associated to the presence of the filler. Comparison with the results of optical microscopy shows that this increase is clearly related to the dispersion. The interparticle distance is likely to be the leading parameter rather than the number of particles. Characterization of the amount of bound polymer shows that the amount of bound polymer is nearly independent of the matrix composition. Futhermore, the composition of the bound layer reflects the matrix composition though PEO is slightly preferentially bound on the active carbon.