Styrenic block copolymers (SBC) have been gaining attention as a specialty material in elastomer and composite industries over an extended period. Its unique segmental architecture, controllable mechanical strength, ease of processing, oxidative, and environmental stability enable versatile applications. SBCs with other unique features like ion‐containing blocks, vascular compatibility, and biostability are gaining popularity in several new‐age applications. The review mainly displays the new synthetic strategies for SBC having superior thermal and environmental resistance and how their morphologies get affected by the invention of different synthesis and molecular designing technologies. It elaborates prospects and future of SBCs in other innovative application fields like sensors for wearable devices, next‐generation proton exchange membranes for fuel cells, portable power sources for electric vehicles, shape memory polymers, and so forth. Its potential in biomedical applications like heart valves, urinary tract devices, coating for coronary stents, implants, and drug delivery applications has also been discussed. It also analyses structure properties relationship which affects their performance in these fields, along with a brief introduction about the history of invention.
An important factor for the preparation of thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) is the mixing sequence or technique as it is controlling the product quality and production rate. The effect of different routes of mixing sequences on the mechanical properties and rheological properties have been studied. Four different types of mixing sequences have been pursued and ultra-high molecular weight EPDM (UHMW-EPDM) master batch technique has shown maximum prospect over the melt blending method. Co-agent master-batch sample showed optimum balance between TS and %EB over the other master-batch samples. Melt blending technique shows moderate properties for all cases. Rheological data follows the same trend as observed for the mechanical properties. Crosslink density also found the highest for the co-agent master-batch sample and co-agent/peroxide master-batch sample over the other two samples. Cryo-fractured and etched TPV samples were prepared and examined in FE-SEM. Co-agent master-batch sample shows the droplet type morphology.This new type of UHMW-EPDM based TPV with co-agent/rubber masterbatch mixing technique leads to superior physico-mechanical properties over the other mixing techniques. These newly established TPVs can be used as various injection molded parts, esthetic seals/strips and 2K-molds for the automotive applications.
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