Carbon nanotubes toughened immiscible polymer blends

The incorporation of CNTs into the immiscible blends are increasingly attractive because of high performance, its wide application and great prospects for development in the future. The objective of this review focuses on CNTs toughened immiscible polymer blends based on the selective localization of CNTs in the immiscible blends. Firstly, the thermodynamic and kinetic factors that determines the localization of CNTs are introduced. The former is relative to the wetting coefficient that can be applied to evaluate the favorable polymer component for CNTs; and the latter relates to the migration of CNTs in polymer blends. Combined with the morphology evolution accompanying with the incorporation of CNTs, the selective localization of CNTs can be distributed in dispersed phase, continuous phase or at the interface, exhibiting different unique properties. Among these properties, CNTs toughened the immiscible polymer blends can be found in these two cases: CNTs disperse in one phase (droplets or continuous) or CNTs disperse at the interface. With the presence of CNTs in immiscible blend, the toughening mechanisms involve: 1) the formation of percolative CNTs network; 2) formation of “cross-linked”-like structure; 3) morphology evolution; 4) compatibilization of immiscible blends; 5) nanobridge effect of CNTs at the interface. This review details recent works for the above mentioned selective localization of CNTs in immiscible blend and corresponding the toughening mechanisms of CNTs for immiscible blends, which is proposed to provide a guidance for the polymer toughening.