Journal Article

The localization of polymer grafted nanoparticles (GNPs) at the interface betweenimmiscible polymers can significantly alter their phase separation kinetics. However,modifying the role of GNP surface activity has not been explored in this context.Using in-situ atomic force microscopy and grazing-incidence X-ray photon correlationspectroscopy we reveal how subtle variations in the entropic and enthalpic interactionsbetween the GNPs and the blend polymers can result in dramatic differences in phaseseparation kinetics. [...]

The interfacial assembly and jamming of nanoparticles(NPs) in phase separating blends is a potentially usefulstrategy for creating nanoporous gels and Pickering emulsions.However, the lack of experimental methods to obtain microscopicinsights into the kinetics of this interfacial NP jamming presentschallenges. We use grazing incidence standing wave X-ray photoncorrelation spectroscopy on a novel bilayer blend geometryembedded with polymer grafted nanoparticles (GNPs) to in situstudy the temporal evolution of GNP interfacial jamming duringbinary polymer blend phase separation. [...]