Reactive Spreading Dynamics of Molten Polymer Liquids

Despite the key to the adhesion between polymers and a plethora of materials, our understanding of reactive wetting is still rudimentary. In the present work, we report the reactive wetting dynamics of molten maleic anhydride-grafted polypropylene (MA-g-PP) liquids modeled by molecular-kinetic theory (MKT). The dependencies of the contact line friction (ζ) and viscosity (η) were compared for reactive and nonreactive wetting polymer systems. Compared with linear dependencies of ζ and η for the nonreactive wetting systems, the reactive wetting system presented a nonlinear relationship. In the capillary regime, the chemistry-affected regime is followed by a regime that is nearly not affected by chemical reactions, which is identified by the linear MKT. The formation of a new interface and the resulting entanglements of polymer chains in the chemistry-affected regime contribute to the dependence of ζ on η in the capillary regime.