2001 Volume 27 Issue 6 Pages 742-748
The effects of quench temperature, initial polymer concentration and cooling rate on the evolution of pore structure for the system PMMA/cyclohexanol by thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) method was examined by the simulation of the spinodal decomposition based on the model of Cahn-Hilli ard formalism. The domain size of spinodal decomposition structure increased with the increase in the quench temperature or the decrease in polymer. With the increase in the cooling rate, the temperature at which the droplet structure was formed decreased. Therefore, the size of the spinodal decomposition structure decreased.
The structure formation was also simulated, under conditions of a distribution of quench temperature, initial polymer concentration or the cooling rate. The growth of asymmetric structure was observed, because domain size of spinodal decomposition structure was dependent on temperature and polymer concentration in the identical structure.