Résumé
The mechanical properties of nanocomposite materials are controlled to a large extent by the filler-filler interactions. Nevertheless, another important contribution - less well understood - is due to the polymer chain-filler interactions. Experimentally, the radius of gyration (Rg) of polymer chains in nanocomposites can be measured by SANS using the zero average contrast conditions (mixing hydrogenated (H) and deuterated (D) chains) in order to match the filler signal and measure the chain form factor. However, many studies display an unexplained polluted SANS signal in the low-q range. In this talk, we will discuss the measurement of polymer chain signal in nanocomposites prepared from the drying of a colloidal dispersion of silica and polymer particles. In such samples, the mixture of H and D chains results from the dissolution of H and D latex beads. This dissolution was followed by SANS in the low q range, as function of thermal annealing (figure 1) and filler content using an original model [1]. Experimental results demonstrate that the dissolution dynamics of polymer chains is significantly slowed down by the presence of silica nanoparticles [1]. Besides, the effect of the filler size on the chain signal in the nanocomposites was studied by a combination of SAXS and SANS measurements and reveal that the filler contribute to the SANS signal in nanocomposites filled with small silica nanoparticles (compared to the latex beads) contrarily to nanocomposites filled with bigger silica particles. We rationalize this observation considering an attractive interaction between polymers and silica particles leading to an inhibited interdiffusion of latex particles in the vicinity of silica particles, and a statistical local assymmetry due to the small number of latex beads defining the environment of small silica particles. Finally, no evolution of the polymer Rg was found in our samples.References[1] Genix et al., Macromolecules (2012), 45, 1663.[2] Banc et al., Macromolecules (2015), in press.