Phase behavior of blends of linear and branched polyethylenes on micron length scales via ultra-small angle neutron scattering (USANS)

SANS experiments on blends of linear, high density (HD) and long chain branched, low density (LD) polyethylenes indicate that these systems form a one-phase mixture in the melt. However, the maximum spatial resolution of pinhole cameras is ∼10³Å and it has therefore been suggested that data might also be interpreted as arising from a bi-phasic melt with large a particle size (∼1µm), because most of the scattering from the different phases would not be resolved. We have addressed this hypothesis by means of USANS experiments, which confirm that HDPE/LDPE blends are homogenous in the melt on length scales up to 20µm. We have also studied blends of HDPE and short-chain branched linear low density polyethylenes (LLDPEs), which phase separate when the branch content is sufficiently high. LLDPEs prepared with Ziegler-Natta catalysts exhibit a wide distribution of compositions, and may therefore be thought of as a "blend" of different species. When the composition distribution is broad enough, a fraction of highly branched chains may phase separate on µm-length scales, and USANS has also been used to quantify this phenomenon.