a) b - École Polytechnique de Montréal

conductive polymer, the applicability of these original morphologies is confirmed mostly by
conductivity results. It is shown that the order of phases in a complete wetting case such as a
multi-percolated structure is dependent only on the thermodynamic properties; although viscosity
and composition of phases play a major role in the determination of the morphology, they do not
change the order of phases. In this case, addition of the copolymer of adjacent phases in a multipercolated
structure induces a reduction in the phase size of the other phases, lowering the
percolation threshold of phases, which leads to higher conductivity of the samples. Though the
order of phases in multi-percolated structures is determined by the interfacial tension between
phases, it is shown that the viscosity of phases significantly influences the distribution of
interfacial energy between phases, and ultimately, the morphology.
It is shown that fully interconnected porous materials are prepared via the production of a multipercolated
structure followed by selective phase extraction. These porogens are used as
substrates for alternate deposition of PSS and PANI. A detailed study on the behaviour of
polyelectrolytes in the deposition process is carried out.
This thesis presents a systematic technique for study and prediction the morphology of
quaternary and quinary blends. To date, there is no theory for prediction of the morphology and
order of the phases in hierarchical self-assembled systems prepared by melt-blending. This is the
first study which begins to develop some mechanism and methods to predict the morphology of
multi-component blends.
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