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Enhancing the Thermal Stability of Polypropylene by Blending with Low Amounts of Natural Antioxidants
Author(s) -
HernándezFernández Joaquín,
Rayón Emilio,
López Juan,
Arrieta Marina P.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
macromolecular materials and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.913
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1439-2054
pISSN - 1438-7492
DOI - 10.1002/mame.201900379
Subject(s) - caffeic acid , polypropylene , materials science , thermal stability , degradation (telecommunications) , chemical engineering , wetting , miscibility , polymer , fourier transform infrared spectroscopy , chlorogenic acid , antioxidant , nuclear chemistry , organic chemistry , composite material , chemistry , chromatography , telecommunications , computer science , engineering
Abstract Natural antioxidants are added in very low amounts to protect a polypropylene (PP) matrix against thermo‐oxidative degradation during processing. Thus, PP is melt‐blended with caffeic, chlorogenic, trans‐ferrulic, and p ‐coumaric acids, and also with flavone and 3‐hydroxyflavone at 0.1 wt% with respect to the PP matrix. Neat PP and PP blended with three traditional antioxidants are prepared for comparison. A complete structural, thermal, and mechanical characterization is conducted. Ferrulic acid and particularly caffeic acid increases the thermal stability, showing also the highest activation energy. The structural changes of PP‐based films due to the polymer thermal degradation at high temperature (i.e., 400 °C) followed by FTIR reveal that antioxidants effectively delay the thermal degradation process. The wettability and the mechanical performance are also studied to get information regarding the industrial application of such films. While caffeic acid provides a more flexible material, ferrulic acid provides higher water resistance. Finally, AFM‐QNM shows that PP with caffeic acid has the highest miscibility.