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  • General Entropy Approach To...
    Hou, Xunan; Pei, Qing‐Xiang; Sun, Wen; Song, Bangjie; Chen, Huixin; Liu, Zhibang; Kong, Junhua; Zhang, Yong‐Wei; Liu, Ping; He, Chaobin

    Macromolecular rapid communications., March 2024, 2024-Mar, 2024-03-00, 20240301, Volume: 45, Issue: 5
    Journal Article

    Entropy is a universal concept across the physics of mixtures. While the role of entropy in other multicomponent materials has been appreciated, its effects in polymers and plastics have not. In this work, it is demonstrated that the seemingly small mixing entropy contributes to the miscibility and performance of polymer alloys. Experimental and modeling studies on over 30 polymer pairs reveal a strong correlation between entropy, morphology, and mechanical properties, while elucidating the mechanism behind: in polymer blends with weak interactions, entropy leads to homogeneously dispersed nanosized domains stabilized by highly entangled chains. This unique microstructure promotes uniform plastic deformation at the interface, thus improving the toughness of conventional brittle polymers by 1–2 orders of magnitude without sacrificing other properties, analogous to high‐entropy metallic alloys. The proposed strategy also applies to ternary polymer systems and copolymers, offering a new pathway toward the development of sustainable polymers. Common brittle plastics are toughened by 10–100 folds by simple mixing. They could withstand tensile deformations up to 500% and high loads up to 60 MPa without fracture, due to entropy‐driven dense entanglements. This finding provides new design strategy for high‐performance sustainable polymer materials.