A Study of Mechanical Properties and Morphological Change of Polypropylene/Polyamide with Addition of PP-g-MAH through Reactive Processing Method
Shigeya NAKAMURA, Kazuki OKA, Katsuhisa TOKUMITSU, Yoshihiro YAMASHITA, Kenji KIKUCHI and Takeshi KANAZAWA
Abstract:In this study, mechanical properties and morphological change of polypropylene (PP) and polyamide 6 (PA6) blend prepared by reactive processing (RP) with addition of PP-grafted maleic anhydride (PP-g-MAH) as a compatibilizer was investigated. As RP methods, three different procedures for feeding PA6 and/or PP-g-MAH through side feeder were employed and two different types of PP-g-MAH were used. The PP/PA6 blends obtained by feeding PA6 and PP-g-MAH through side feeder (Tp.Sn.c) showed high mechanical properties: the elongation at break increased up to 700 % and the domain size of PA6 phase decreased dramatically from 29 ƒÊm to 1.6 ƒÊm. Although the modulus and the elongation at break of PP/PA6 blend with PP-g-MAH increased with the amount of PP-g-MAH, they reached constant values up to 3 or 5 phr in both cases of KY-H and KY-L. Furthermore, it was found that the degree of crystallinity of PP decreased and PA6 in the PP/PA6 blend can be changed with the amount of PP-g MAH. Key Words:Polypropylene, Polyamide 6, Maleic anhydride grafted PP, Mechanical properties, Reactive processing