Miscibility of Melt-mixed PLLA/PMMA Blends for Optical Film Application

The miscibility between poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) was investigated using thermal analyses for the purpose of developing birefringence-free material at oriented state. The effect of methyl acrylate (MA) units as comonomer of PMMA on the miscibility was also studied. All the blends prepared in this study show composition-dependent single Tg's between those of blend components and high transparency over the visible region, indicating the miscibility at molecular level and no discernible effect of MA units on it. No phase separation was observed at elevated temperature of 280 o C, higher than the degradation of PLLA and PMMA. The interaction energy density in PLLA/PMMA blends with 17 mol% of MA was measured to be -0.74 J/cm 3 from the equilibrium melting tem- perature depression based on the Hoffman-Weeks method. The blends show zero-∆n behavior at a specific mixing ratio and the drawing ratio of 3 due to compensation of intrinsic orientation birefringence. Birefringence dispersion of PLLA/ PMMA5 blends was also measured to examine the possibility for quarter-wave plates or polarizer protective films.

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