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Disprsion in high viscosity ratio polyolefin blends
Author(s) -
Huneault Michel A.,
Mighri Frej,
Ko Glen H.,
Watanabe Fuminao
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.10762
Subject(s) - materials science , polyolefin , polypropylene , viscosity , dispersion (optics) , composite material , particle size , polymer , polyethylene , range (aeronautics) , plastics extrusion , particle (ecology) , chemical engineering , optics , oceanography , physics , layer (electronics) , geology , engineering
The dispersion of polyethylene and polyropylene in a polypropylene matrix using a co‐rotating twin screw extruder has been investigated. Poymer pairs were selected to study the effect of viscosity ratio, defined as the viscosity of the minor component over that of the matrix, in the range 0.1 to 900. The dispersion quality was defined by determining the number of “gels,”i.e., large undispersed particles, present in thin films and by conventional microscopy techniques. The gel numbers were found to increase steadily with the viscoty ratio. It was also observed that particle size distributions in the high viscosity ratio blends was very broad, with particles as large as a hundred microns coexisting with much finer ones in the sub‐micron range. For a given polymer blend, the re‐processing was found to have and important effect on gel reduction. The effect of rotation speed, flow rate minor phase feeding position was aso investigated and is discussed in the paper.