Blends of single-site linear and branched polyethylene. II. Morphology characterisation

In this work, the morphology of a low-molecular weight single-site based linear polyethylene and several high molecular weight single-site ethylene–hexene copolymers, as well as their blends are investigated in the solid state using differential scanning calorimetry, transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and optical microscopy. Such model blends are believed to be important to elucidate the structure of polyethylene with a bimodal molecular weight distribution. The lamellae- and spherulite structure in the blend components and in the blends, and the ability to cocrystallise from the melt are found to be highly dependent on the amount of comonomer incorporation in the branched blend component.