Improving Environmental Stress Cracking Resistance of High‐Density Polyethylene Grades by Comonomer Addition and Nanocomposite Approach

Abstract

The aim is to determine the effect of polymer density, correlated to the comonomer content, and nanosilica addition on the mechanical and Environmental Stress Cracking Resistance (ESCR) characteristics of high‐density polyethylene (HDPE). In this regard, five HDPE samples with similar Melt Flow Index (MFI) and molar mass but various densities were acquired from a petrochemical plant. Two polymerization reactors work in series and differ only in the amount of 1‐buene comonomer fed to the second reactor. To ascertain the microstructure of the studied samples, GPC and SSA (successive self‐nucleation and annealing) analyses were accomplished. All samples resulted having similar characteristics but slightly various SCB/1000C=7.26‐9.74 (SCB=Short Chain Branching). Consequently, meanwhile studied HDPEs reveal similar notched impact and stress at yield values, the tensile modulus, stress‐at‐break, and elongation‐at‐break tend to demonstrate different results with the SCB content. More significantly, ESCR characteristic varied considerably with SCB/1000C extent, so that higher amount of SCB acknowledged advanced ESCR. Notably, blending HDPE sample containing higher amount of SCB/1000C, with 3 wt.% of chemically modified nanosilica enhanced ESCR characteristic by 40%. DFT (Density Functional Theory) calculations unveiled the role of the comonomer, quantitatively by binding energies and qualitatively by Non Covalent Interaction (NCI) plots.