Strengthening Interfacial Adhesion and Foamability of Immiscible Polymer Blends via Rationally Designed Reactive Macromolecular Compatibilizers

Foams made of immiscible polymer blends have attracted great interest in both academia and industry, because of the integration of desirable properties of different polymers in a hybrid foam. However, the foamability and end-use properties are hampered because of the poor interfacial strength within the immiscible blends. Furthermore, few investigations have been carried out on the mechanisms by which interfacial strength and structure affect the foamability of polymer blends. In this work, two different reactive interfacial compatibilizers, i.e., poly(styrene-co-glycidyl methacrylate)-graft-poly(l-lactide) and poly(styrene-co-glycidyl methacry-late)-graft-poly(d-lactide), abbreviated as SG-g-PLLA and SG-g-PDLA, respectively, were designed and synthesized through reactive melt blending and subsequently applied to strengthen the interfacial strength and foamability of immiscible poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT)/poly(l-lactide) (PLLA) blends. Both compatibilizers could remarkably enhance the interfacial strength and foamability of the PBAT/PLLA blends, as evidenced by the significantly elongated dispersed phase in the resulting cocontinuous phase and more than 7000-fold increase in the cell density. Furthermore, the improved foamability was quantitively explained by the reduced gas diffusion and increased melt strength. Strikingly, the SG-g-PDLA introduced a stereocomplex crystal at the interface (i-SC), providing highly strengthened interfaces and nanoscale heterogeneous nucleation sites, which led to an energetically favorable cell nucleation. Moreover, foams with specifically laminated cell structures were fabricated by combining pressure-induced flow processing and i-SC strengthened interfaces. This work provides insight into the relationship between interfacial strength and formability of immiscible polymer blends and offers new possibilities for controlling cell morphologies and designing unique cell structures for polymer foams.