Quantitative characterization of a polystyrene/poly(alpha-methylstyrene) blend by MALDI mass spectrometry and size-exclusion chromatography.

The use of coupled size-exclusion chromatography and MALDI mass spectrometry for quantitative measurement of the composition of technical polymer blends at the molecular level is described. The method is illustrated with a model binary blend consisting of polystyrene and poly(alpha-methylstyrene), both polymers having similar molecular weights and polydispersities. The proposed MALDI data treatment allows determination of the chemical composition of the blend, the molecular weights of the constituents, and the distributions of the homopolymers.