Effects Of Reactive Or Complex Compatibilizer On Co-continuous Morphology Development

Mixing different polymer materials together would not only achieve new materials with combination of complementary properties but also polymers with novel properties. The performances of polymer materials not only have relevance with the original polymer materials, but also the final morphology of polymer system. Most polymer systems are immiscible and the final morphology varies. While co-continuous morphology is a special morphology in which polymer materials interpenetrate with each other and exhibits three-dimensional continuity. And novel properties that the original polymer materials don't have could be gained occasionally. Factors affecting properties of co-continuous morphology polymer systems are mainly co-continuous phase size and stability of co-continuous morphology. Compatibilizer generated in reactive mixing process would reduce interfacial tension and co-continuous phase size and stabilize co-continuous morphology. The factor that limits the application of co-continuous morphology on industrial fields is co-continuous morphology composition range. Adding complex compatibilizer into polymer mixing system would form new polymer interface between immiscible polymer interface, broaden the co-continuous composition range, reduce interfacial tension and stabilize co-continuous morphology. The thesis mainly discusses the rules of effects of two different compatibilizer systems on co-continuous morphology development.Reactive mixing process combines polymer mixing and compatibilizing process together thus enhances polymer mixing efficiency; compatibilizer is generated in the interface and there is no need to concern for diffusion of compatibilizer, therefore high compatibilizing efficiency could be obtained. In order to investigate the reactive and compatibilizing efficiency, PS/PA6/PS-co-TMI polymer system was chosen to study compatibilizing rules of reactive compatibilizer. DSC and FTIR results both showed that (PS-co-TMI)-g-PA6 was generated in the mixing process. PS-co-TMI with different TMI content were chosen to investigate compatibilizing efficiency of different PS-co-TMI and rules of co-continuous morphology development. It was being found out that PS-co-TMI-2 had the best compatibilizing efficiency. Polymer system containing PS-co-TMI-2 were found to have the smallest co-continuous phase size and most stable co-continuous morphology after quiescent annealing in the oil bath under high temperature. Polymer system containing PS-co-TMI-8 were found to contain unreacted PS-co-TMI, and even (PS-co-TMI)-g-PA6 generated in the system were found to contain unreacted -NCO groups, accordingly reduce the compatibilizing efficiency of PS-co-TMI-8.Addition of single graft compatibilizer into polymer mixing system would reduce interfacial tension and co-continuous phase size. However, single graft compatibilizer would also narrow co-continuous composition range. Adding complex compatibilizer into polymer system would both stabilize the co-continuous morphology under high temperature and broaden co-continuous composition range. This thesis mainly discusses variations of co-continuous composition range and effects of stability of co-continuous morphology after adding PP-g-PA6/PS-g-PA6 complex compatibilizer into PP/PS polymer system. Addition of complex compatibilizer reduced interfacial tension of PP/PS polymer system and broadened co-continuous composition range at least 5%. Stability of co-continuous morphology has also been increased after adding complex compatibilizer into the polymer system. Complex compatibilizer with the higher graft density had better compatibilizing efficiency and morphology-stabilizing effects than other complex compatibilized polymer systems. The results also showed that graft density had more pronounced effects on morphology stability than the length of graft chains.