On the similarity of macromolecular responses to high-energy processes: mechanical milling vs. irradiation

Recent efforts to blend and compatibilize intrinsically immiscible polymers in the solid state by high-energy methods have shown that macromolecules may undergo scission, crosslinking or amorphization, depending on the chemical nature of the repeat unit, the processing temperature and the initial degree of polymer crystallinity. Identical process-induced molecular and structural modifications have been previously observed in polymers exposed to large doses of electron and g radiation, suggesting that the responses of polymers to high-energy processes may be mechanistically similar. In this work, we explore a variety of similarities between mechanically-milled and irradiated polymers in terms of molecular characteristics, process temperature and polymer crystallinity, and we demonstrate that these similarities provide predictive guidance for the selection of polymers to be subjected to solid-state processing. # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.