Recycling Compatibilizers: Polymer Blend Domain Size (2D Cross-Section)

When two recycled plastics like polyethylene and polypropylene are melt-blended, they don't mix at the molecular level — one forms droplets dispersed in the other, and the size of those droplets decides whether the recyclate is strong or brittle. This simulator renders that dispersed phase as circular droplets in a 2D cross-section of a sheared melt, breaking apart when the capillary number Ca exceeds a viscosity-ratio-dependent critical value and coalescing when they collide, exactly as immiscible polymer blends behave in an extruder. A compatibilizer slider lowers the interfacial tension between the phases and adds steric resistance to coalescence — the two real levers a block-copolymer compatibilizer pulls in a recycling line — while shear-rate and viscosity-ratio controls trace out the Grace/Taylor breakup curve live, with interfacial tension, capillary number, mean domain size and droplet count all read out numerically. Drag the canvas to pan and scroll to zoom in on the domain structure.