Photoreaction-induced phase separation and morphology control in ternary IPNs blends involving 3D spherical dendrimer

Abstract

In this communication, we report the behaviors of photoreaction-induced phase separation and controllable conditions of the morphological structure in PAMAM-DF/PEMA-CR/PHEMA ternary IPNs blends. Probing by laser scanning confocal microscope (LSCM), we demonstrated that the morphologies of non-linear PAMAM-DF dendrimer selectively dispersing into a miscible PHEMA in the ternary IPNs blends depend on phase separation between PEMA-CR and PHEMA, which is driven by photochemical reactions in the polymer mixtures. The distribution of 5G PAMAM-DF dendrimer in the ternary IPNs and the corresponding morphological structure on the micrometre scale can be manipulated by selecting miscibility between dendrimers and polymers, using ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation and simply changing the dynamic parameter of photochemical reactions.