Volume 139, Issue 30 e52691
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Effects of different polyolefin copolymers on properties of melt mixed polypropylene blends

Thi Thu Loan Doan

Corresponding Author

Thi Thu Loan Doan

The University of Danang - University of Science and Technology, Da Nang, Vietnam

Correspondence

Thi Thu Loan Doan, The University of Danang - University of Science and Technology, 54 Nguyen Luong Bang, Da Nang 50608, Vietnam.

Email: [email protected]

Michael Thomas Müller, Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e. V., Hohe Str.6, 01069 Dresden, Germany.

Email: [email protected]

Contribution: Conceptualization (lead), Funding acquisition (lead), Methodology (lead), Supervision (lead), Writing - original draft (lead)

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Michael Thomas Müller

Corresponding Author

Michael Thomas Müller

Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e. V., Dresden, Germany

Correspondence

Thi Thu Loan Doan, The University of Danang - University of Science and Technology, 54 Nguyen Luong Bang, Da Nang 50608, Vietnam.

Email: [email protected]

Michael Thomas Müller, Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e. V., Hohe Str.6, 01069 Dresden, Germany.

Email: [email protected]

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Hoang M. Nguyen

Hoang M. Nguyen

The University of Danang - University of Science and Technology, Da Nang, Vietnam

Contribution: Funding acquisition (equal), Methodology (supporting), Writing - review & editing (equal)

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First published: 02 June 2022
Citations: 1

Funding information: Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden; Funds for Science and Technology Development of the University of Danang under project number: B2019-DN02-71

Abstract

Polypropylene (PP) is an affordable plastic commodity but lacks massive use in engineering applications given its limited mechanical properties including significantly low impact strength. In this work, three polyolefin-based copolymers including ethylene-octene random block (Engage, E), ethylene-octene multi-block (Infuse, I), and ethylene-propylene copolymer (Versify, V) were blended with PP. It was found that the V copolymer was miscible while the rests were immiscible in the PP matrix. Mechanical testings indicated that the addition of the 20% E and 20% I copolymers significantly enhanced the impact toughness of PP up to 83% and 108% at −20°C, respectively. At a higher temperature such as 25°C, the impact toughness of the PP/E20 and PP/I20 were 400 and 571%, respectively. The enhancement of the PP impact toughness was governed by the particle size of the added immiscible copolymers. Experimental results also revealed that the good compatibility between PP and copolymers has an insignificant influence on the mechanical properties of PP while the essence of added copolymer plays a key role instead. The findings from this work provide significant insights into the design of PP-based products with desirable properties to satisfy requirements demanded by engineering applications.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Research data are not shared.

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