Electron‐Induced Reactive Processing of Poly(propylene)/Ethylene–Octene Copolymer Blends: A Novel Route to Prepare Thermoplastic Vulcanizates

Abstract

TPVs are prepared by dynamic vulcanization in which crosslinking of an elastomeric polymer takes place during its melt mixing with a thermoplastic polymer under high‐shear conditions. 30:70 wt% blends of PP and ethylene–octene copolymer are vulcanized using electron‐induced reactive processing (EIReP) employing a range of absorbed doses (25, 50, and 100 kGy) while keeping the electron energy and treatment time fixed. The structure/property relationships of the prepared samples are studied using various characterization techniques such as DMA, DSC, SEM, and melt rheology. The results suggest that EIReP offers a novel route to prepare TPVs without any chemical crosslinking and coupling agents.

Novel thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) based on silicone rubber and polyamide exploring peroxide cross-linking

“…Further TPVs based on silicone rubber [16] and maleated ethylene propylene rubber (EPM) [17] was also developed for some special purpose. Babu and coworkers [18,19] explored a new TPV based on polypropylene (PP) and ethylene octene copolymer (EOC) blend system. EOC has gained special attention because of its unique molecular structure and also it provides better toughening characteristics than EPDM rubber [20,21].…”

A New Approach to Dynamic Vulcanization: Use of Functional Nitroxyls to Control Reaction Dynamics and Outcomes

“…1,2 Their compositions range from impact-modified plastics that contain a small amount of elastomer, 3 to elastomer-rich, soft TPVs whose mechanical properties approximate those of cured rubber articles. 4,5 Since thermoplastic makes up the continuous phase, DV products are thermoformable and can be processed by conventional, high-throughput equipment. Moreover, the cross-linked elastomer phase is not susceptible to coalescence, thereby eliminating concerns over blend morphology coarsening during melt processing.…”

Influence of network structure on the viscoelastic properties of dynamically vulcanized rubber/plastic blends: An alternative approach to understand the microstructure evolution

“…(1) where, M a n u s c r i p t 10 | P a g e χ = polymer-solvent interaction parameter, taken as 0.38 for both S-SBR and toluene at 25°C [32,33]. V r =Volume fraction of rubber in the swollen network and V r can be expressed as (2) where, A r = Ratio of the volume of absorbed toluene to that of S-SBR after swelling.…”