Compatibilization of polypropylene/poly(acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) blends by polypropylene-graft-cardanol

Abstract

The polypropylene-graft-cardanol (PP-g-cardanol) was prepared by reactive extrusion with polypropylene (PP) and natural renewable cardanol which could increase the interfacial energy of PP and inhibit the degradation of PP during the process of reactive extrusion and usage. In this article, PP-g-cardanol and polypropylene-graft-maleic anhydride (PP-g-MAH) were used as compatibilizers of the polypropylene (PP)/poly(acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) (ABS) blends. PP/ABS (70/30, wt %) blends with PP-g-cardanol and PP-g-MAH were prepared by a corotating twin-screw extruder. From the results of morphological studies, the droplet size of ABS was minimized to 1.93 and 2.01 μm when the content of PP-g-cardanol and PP-g-MAH up to 5 and 7 phr, respectively. The results of mechanical testing showed that the tensile strength, impact strength and flexural strength of PP/ABS (70/30) blends increase with the increasing of PP-g-cardanol content up to 5 phr. The complex viscosity of PP/ABS (70/30) blends with 5 phr PP-g-cardanol showed the highest value. Moreover, the change of impact strength and tensile strength of PP/ABS (70/30) blends were investigated by accelerated degradation testing. After 4 accelerated degradation cycles, the impact strength of the PP/ABS (70/30) blends with 5 phr PP-g-cardanol decrease less than 6%, but PP/ABS (70/30) blends with 5 phr PP-g-MAH and without compatibilizer decrease as much as 12% and 32%, respectively. The tensile strength of PP/ABS (70/30) blends has a similar tendency to that of impact strength. The above results indicated that PP-g-cardanol could be used as an impact modifier and a good compatibilizer, which also exhibited better stability performance during accelerated degradation testing.