{"term":{"id":"07284","title":"morphology coarsening","longtitle":"IUPAC Gold Book - morphology coarsening","doi":"10.1351\/goldbook.MT07284","code":"MT07284","status":"current","also defines":"<em>also defines<\/em>: phase ripening","definitions":[{"id":1,"text":"Process by which phase domains increase in size during the aging of a multiphase material.","notes":{"1":"In the coarsening at the late stage of phase separation, volumes and compositions of phase domains are conserved.","2":"Representative mechanisms for coarsening at the late stage of phase separation are: (1) material flow in domains driven by interfacial tension (observed in a co-continuous morphology), (2) the growth of domain size by evaporation from smaller droplets and condensation into larger droplets, and (3) coalescence (fusion) of more than two droplets. The mechanisms are usually called (1) Siggia s mechanism, (2) Ostwald ripening (or the Lifshitz–Slyozov mechanism), and (3) coalescence.","3":"Morphology coarsening can be substantially stopped by, for example, vitrification, crosslinking, and pinning, the slowing down of molecular diffusion across domain interfaces."},"links":[{"term":"Morphology","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/MT07285"},{"term":"Ostwald ripening","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/O04348"},{"term":"crosslinking","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/CT07136"},{"term":"diffusion","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/D01716"},{"term":"evaporation","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/E02227"},{"term":"interfacial tension","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/I03088"},{"term":"phase separation","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/\/terms\/view\/P04534"}],"sources":["PAC, 2004, 76, 1985. 'Definition of terms related to polymer blends, composites, and multiphase polymeric materials (IUPAC Recommendations 2004)' on page 2000 (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1351\/pac200476111985)"]}],"altoutputs":{"html":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/MT07284\/html","xml":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/MT07284\/xml","plain":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/MT07284\/plain"},"citation":"Citation: 'morphology coarsening' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351\/goldbook.MT07284","license":"The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/) for individual terms.","collection":"If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .","disclaimer":"The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.","accessed":"2026-06-04T07:21:41+00:00"}}