Introduction to high temperature polymer blends

As has already been discussed earlier in this chapter, one of the most common ways to achieve miscibility in high temperature polymer blends is through the introduction of specific interactions between the two components in the mixture. This is not surprising, as this is also an often-used approach to develop miscibility in other types of blend systems as well. The one exception to this pattern is the case of blends of two liquid crystal polymers in which miscibility has been determined in systems in which there is no well-defined specific interaction. In those systems, miscibility appears to occur based primarily on similarities in molecular conformation between the two blend components. These results suggest that entropic effects play a significant role in defining the phase behavior of mixtures that contain high performance polymers. 

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