Dispersing Nanoparticles in a Polymer Film via Solvent Evaporation
arXiv:1605.06408 · doi:10.1021/acsmacrolett.6b00263
Abstract
Large scale molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the dispersion of nanoparticles (NPs) in a polymer film during solvent evaporation. As the solvent evaporates, a dense polymer-rich skin layer forms at the liquid/vapor interface, which is either NP rich or poor depending on the strength of the NP/polymer interaction. When the NPs are strongly wet by the polymer, the NPs accumulate at the interface and form layers. However when the NPs are only partially wet by the polymer, most NPs are uniformly distributed in the bulk of the polymer film with the dense skin layer serving as a barrier to prevent the NPs from moving to the interface. Our results point to a possible route to employ less favorable NP/polymer interactions and fast solvent evaporation to uniformly disperse NPs in a polymer film, contrary to the common belief that strong NP/polymer attractions are needed to make NPs well dispersed in polymer nanocomposites.
7 pages, 6 figures
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Cited by in corpus (8)
- Cross-interaction drives stratification in drying film of binary colloidal mixtures
- Structure Formation in Soft Matter Solutions Induced by Solvent Evaporation
- Stratification of mixtures in evaporating liquid films occurs only for a range of volume fractions of the smaller component
- Stratification in Drying Films Containing Bidisperse Mixtures of Nanoparticles
- Influence of hydrodynamic interactions on stratification in drying mixtures
- Stratification of polymer mixtures in drying droplets: hydrodynamics and diffusion
- Ordering Nanoparticles with Polymer Brushes
- Modeling Solution Drying by Moving a Liquid-Vapor Interface: Method and Applications