Poly(vinylidene fluoride) and Poly(ethyl 2-cyanoacrylate) Blends through Controlled Polymerization of Ethyl 2-Cyanoacrylates

We demonstrate solution blending of PVDF with PECA obtained by controlled polymerization of ECA. This method circumvents the processing detriments posed by the instant cross-linking of CAs when encountering aprotic solvents such as DMF, a common PVDF solvent. The slower polymerization of ECA was tracked using NMR spectroscopy. The polymer mixture solutions were spin-coated to study the film morphology, wettability, and surface energy. The polymer films show strong contribution of basic polar surface energy that can be beneficial in biomedical applications. DSC and TGA were also performed on the blended polymers. The DSC thermograms show clear suppression of PVDF melting point, which provides evidence of two-polymer miscibility.