Showing papers by "Ludwik Leibler published in 2005"
TL;DR: The gap between block copolymer self-assembly and affordable nanostructured plastics endowed with still-unexplored combinations of properties is getting narrower.
Abstract: In this era of portability and rapid technological advances, polymers are more than ever under pressure to be cheap and offer tailored property profiles. Often, the key lies in designing blends and alloys carefully structured at the appropriate scale (preferably less than a micrometre) from existing polymers. Block copolymers - two or more different polymer chains linked together - have long been thought to offer the solution. Local segregation of the different polymer blocks yields molecular-scale aggregates of nanometre size. Recent progress in synthetic chemistry has unveiled unprecedented opportunities to prepare tailored block copolymers at reasonable cost. Over twenty years of intense academic research and the advent of powerful statistical theories and computational methods should help predict the equilibrium and even non-equilibrium behaviour of copolymers and their blends with other polymers. The gap between block copolymer self-assembly and affordable nanostructured plastics endowed with still-unexplored combinations of properties is getting narrower.
650 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors illustrate a simple and low-cost strategy for two classes of self-assembled systems: plastics reinforced by copolymer dispersions and nanostructured bicontinuous plastics made by reactive blending of industrially available polymers.
90 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a thermal treatment and microscopic observations strongly suggest that crystalline orientation, size of crystalline grains and molecular organization at grain boundaries play a determinant role in the toughening mechanisms.
57 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the grafting reaction occurs between the amino end-group of polyamide-6 and glutaric anhydride units randomly distributed along the backbone of PMMA.
43 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a simple method based on image analysis of transmission electron micrographs (TEM) was proposed to estimate both distributions in particle size and ligament thickness and showed that corrections from section thickness become significant when thickness is comparable to particle size.
28 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a correlation exists between the degree of expansion of polyurethane foams and the structure of the reacting premixes, and the expansion rate is proportional to the volume fraction of microemulsion in the premix.
22 citations
TL;DR: It is pointed out that a spatially varying electric field can be used to cancel the effect of gravity in liquid mixtures by coupling to the different components' permittivities by coupling them to the electric field.
Abstract: We point out that a spatially varying electric field can be used to cancel the effect of gravity in liquid mixtures by coupling to the different components' permittivities. Cancellation occurs if the system under consideration is small enough. For a simple ``wedge'' electrode geometry we show that the required system size and voltage are practical, and easily realizable in the laboratory. Thus this setup might be a simple alternative to other options such as the space shuttle, drop-tower, or magnetic levitation experiments.
5 citations