Search results for "blend"

1994

Polymer blends can undergo, during processing, degradation phenomena because of the presence of both temperature and mechanical stresses. With respect to pure homogeneous polymers, the degradation of polymer blends shows distinct features because of the possible interaction between the different chemical species. These interaction can give rise to both a faster degradation or to the formation of copolymers which act as stabilizing agents. This latter phenomena is particularly important in the processing of condensation polymers

1984

Provided a polymer is soluble, i. e., molecularly dispersed in another polymer irrespective of the molecular weight of the components, the solution is exothermic. By increasing the temperature two effects, both unfavourable to mixing become larger: (i) the excess entropy of mixing caused by contact interaction and (ii) the total effect from the difference of the free volumes of the pure components. So, an upper miscibility gap occurs. The thermodynamic properties of the mixture cannot be derived from the properties of the pure components. They can be described by the corresponding states theory of Prigogine, Flory, and Patterson with suitable values for the contact energy and contact entrop…

Effect of compatibilization on the photo-oxidation behaviour of polyethylene/polyamide 6 blends and their nanocomposites

2015

Abstract Polymer based nanocomposites are increasingly attracting interest from academia and industry, and the use of polymer blends as matrices greatly increase their potential field of application. In order to improve their characteristics, the use of compatibilizers acting on the blend components is mandatory. However, this also leads to rising concerns regarding the behaviour of polymer blend based nanocomposites upon being subjected to photo-oxidative degradation. It is known that morphology can deeply influence the photo-oxidative behaviour, and this can be therefore deeply influenced by the blend components and by the use of compatibilizers. In this work, polymer blend nanocomposites…

Degradation Behavior of Nanocomposite Polymer Blends

2014

The usefulness of any material, including nanocomposite polymer blends, depends on its degradability and durability. Thus, this chapter reviews the status of the research on degradation of nanocomposite polymer blends and, in particular, on clay-nanocomposite polymer blends, paying particular attention to both the role of the filler and the role of the blend morphology and composition. The results of recent research indicate that the clay has two opposing effects on the thermal stability of a nanocomposite polymer blend: (1) a promoter effect of the polymer matrix degradation, which decreases the thermal stability, and (2) a barrier effect, which improves the thermal stability. Moreover, th…

Synthesis and Characterization of a New Fully Aromatic LCP

1996

Abstract Liquid crystal polymers (LCP)are a relatively new class of polymers with very interesting and unusual properties. In particular, easy processability and outstanding mechanical and barrier properties make them very attractive. Unfortunately the high stiffness of their chains often leads to compounds having very high melting points and consequently to unprocessable materials. By adding a flexible segments in the chain backbone the LCPs become processable at lower temperatures but lower properties are displayed. A new rigid liquid crystalline polymer, having excellent physical properties, good processing temperature and a good cost/performance compromise, is described in this work. Th…

Polymeric alloys: Model materials for the understanding of the statistical thermodynamics of mixtures

1997

Polymeric materials find industrial applications that are comparable to those of metals and ceramics.1 In addition to the great variability via the synthesis of various monomers and the choice of the degree of polymerization (N), alloying of polymers finds increasing attention for combining favorable materials properties.1,2 But polymeric (binary) alloys (A,B) of flexible polymers with chain lengths NA, NB are also most interesting for testing theoretical concepts: changing NA, NB one controls the entropy of mixing, keeping intermolecular forces invariant. Variation of these control parameters thus allows stringent tests of the theories on miscibility, unmixing etc. Furthermore, the large s…

Unmixing of Polymer Blends Confined in Ultrathin Films:  Crossover between Two-Dimensional and Three-Dimensional Behavior

2006

The interplay between chain conformations and phase separation in binary symmetric polymer mixtures confined into thin films by "neutral" hard walls (i.e., walls that do not preferentially attract or repel one of the two components of the mixture) is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. Using the bond fluctuation model on a simple cubic lattice in the semi grand canonical ensemble, we locate the critical temperature of demixing via finite size scaling methods for a wide range of chain lengths (16/= N/= 256 effective monomers per chain) and film thicknesses (2/= D/= 19 lattice spacings). Simultaneously, we investigate the geometrical structure of the chains, showing that despite using melt de…

Processability and Properties of Re-Graded, Photo-Oxidized Post-Consumer Greenhouse Films

2005

The recycling of post‐consumer plastics leads, in general, to secondary materials having properties worse than those of the reclaimed material and certainly worse than those of the same virgin polymer. This is because of the degradation undergone by the objects during their use and because of the thermo‐mechanical degradation undergone during the reprocessing operations. The change of the molecular architecture is responsible for this worsening of properties. The use of stabilizing systems can slow the degradation during the melt processing but cannot give any improvement of the final properties of the material. In order to enhance the properties of the recycled plastics, some rebuilding of…

Re-gradation of Photo-oxidized Post-consumer Greenhouse Films

2005

The degradation undergone by the polymers during their use and because of the thermo-mechanical degradation undergone during the reprocessing operations provokes, among other effects, the decrease of the molecular weight. The change of the molecular architecture is responsable for the deterioration of all the properties. In order to restore the properties of post-consumer recycled plastics, some rebuilding of the molecular structure is necessary. In this work, photo-oxidized films for greenhouses were reprocessed in presence of additives able to react with the polyethylene in order to form branching and cross-linking, improving the properties of these post-consumer plastic.

Statistical properties of linear-hyperbranched graft copolymers prepared via "hypergrafting" of AB(m) monomers from linear B-functional core chains: …

2015

The reaction of ABm monomers (m = 2, 3) with a multifunctional Bf-type polymer chain ("hypergrafting") is studied by coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. The ABm monomers are hypergrafted using the slow monomer addition strategy. Fully dendronized, i.e., perfectly branched polymers are also simulated for comparison. The degree of branching of the molecules obtained with the "hypergrafting" process critically depends on the rate with which monomers attach to inner monomers compared to terminal monomers. This ratio is more favorable if the ABm monomers have lower reactivity, since the free monomers then have time to diffuse inside the chain. Configurational chain properties are also…