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Reversible plasticization of nylons 6 and 11 with anhydrous ammonia and their deformation by solid‐state coextrusion
Author(s) -
Zachariades Anagnostis E.,
Porter Roger S.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.1979.070240520
Subject(s) - anhydrous , crystallinity , plasticizer , materials science , nylon 6 , polymer chemistry , extrusion , nylon 66 , ammonia , thermogravimetric analysis , polyamide , ultimate tensile strength , amide , composite material , chemical engineering , nuclear chemistry , polymer , organic chemistry , chemistry , engineering
Reversible plasticization of nylons with anhydrous ammonia is a new concept. In the present studies, nylons 6 and 11 have been plasticized with anhydrous ammonia and subsequently were solid‐state coextruded below the melting point. The plasticization is attained by a temporary disruption of the strong hydrogen bonding between amide groups of adjacent nylon chains. Thermogravimetric and infrared analysis show that for the nylons 6 and 11 the amount of ammonia absorbed is 18% and 10% of the weight of the dry samples, respectively. The ammonia incorporation to preformed nylon ribbons prior to extrusion alleviated significantly the processing difficulties encountered with untreated nylons and aided the rapid extrusion of highly oriented states (EDR 12). The extent of orientation is documented by the high total birefringence values (8.25 × 10 −2 for nylon 6 and 5.8 × 10 −2 for nylon 11), by the significant increase in crystallinity (23.5%–53% for nylon 6 and 25.7%–40% for nylon 11), and by the enhanced tensile moduli (13 GPa for nylon 6 and 4 GPa for nylon 11).