Interfacial tension measurement with the Neumann triangle method

Abstract

The interfacial tensions between polystyrene (PS) and poly(butylene terephthalate)(a) (PBT), PS/poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and PBT/PMMA pairs have been obtained by employing the Neumann Triangle method (NT). The results are in good agreement with those obtained by the breaking thread method. For the first time, the NT method was applied to a reactive polymer pair with an in-situ compatibilizer to measure the interfacial tension. We found that the interfacial tension of the PS/PBT system with a small amount of poly(styrene-co-glycidyl methacrylate)(b) (PS-GMA) is significantly reduced compared to that without PS-GMA.