Slow spinodal decomposition in binary liquid mixtures of polymers. III. Scaling analyses of later-stage unmixing

Later-stage unmixing process of a near critical mixture of polybutadiene (PB)/poly(styrene- r-butadiene)(SBR) were examined at real time t and in situ at several temperatures T by time-resolved light scattering method. The magnitude of scattering vector qm(t,T) at which the intensity becomes maximum and the maximum intensity Im(t,T) were analyzed in order to characterize the coarsening processes of the later-stage spinodal decomposition. The variations of Im and qm with t at different T’s were found to fall onto master curves on the reduced plots, thus assuring the scaling postulate that the data obtained at different t and T for given mixtures are properly scaled with the temperature-dependent characteristic wave number qm(0,T) and characteristic time tc(T).