The influence of filler type on the properties of chosen polymer blends
Adam Gnatowski Politechnika Częstochowska, Katedra Przetwórstwa Tworzyw Sztucznych i Zarządzania Produkcją, al. Armii Krajowej 19c, 42-200 Częstochowa
Quarterly No. 2, 2005 pages 63-68
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abstract The polymer composites and blends take an important part in the development of the technical polymer use. During the last twenty years it is the polymer blends that have been very popular as a new group of polymer materials with interesting and sometimes very specific properties. The reason for polymer blends manufacturing is the will to eliminate or to diminish the drawbacks that characterize the polymers and also desire to drop the price of the expensive polymers with specific properties by mixing them with the cheaper ones, without significant deterioration in these precious properties. Further purpose is to match some very important properties of two polymers along with the diminishing their individual disadvantages. Moreover, manufacturing of the blends out of the polymers being already known is generally much faster than designing and manufacturing of the new polymers. Implementation of the production of blends on a large industrial scale is also cheaper since it bases only on the processes of mixing and, other than the synthesis of new polymers, it requires much smaller investments. The properties of the polymer composites and blends depend significantly on the type of the components and also on the mixing method including the order of the components adding. That kind of influence manifests especially in the change of the mechanical, thermal and processing properties. The basis condition for reaching the homogeneity, specific structure and the properties of a polymer material is its mutual miscibility of the polymers. Additional agents that make mixing easier are usually applied; they have reactive effect which results in a chemical modification of output polymer along with the change in its chemical structure and the structure of macrochains. In order to achieve this, the polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) with low molecular mass (12±2 k) has been used. PVP is characterized by high ability to create complexes which is the reason that it has been applied for the medicine as an agent with high sorption ability and in the textile industry for stabilizing of colouring agents. Polybond 3150 - thermoplastic maleic anhydride has also been used as a compatibilizer used as a chemical agent coupling the modification of the polypropylene homopolymer. It is a stabilizer both for the manufacturing processes and the one that improves the resistance to ageing and to high temperature. Within the work some results of chosen properties of PP and PA and PP/PA blends with different percentage composition with the addition of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as well as Polybond have been presented. The investigations for the influence of the fillers of different types on the properties of prepared blends have been conducted. As a filler a glass fibre with its symbol E made of the boron-aluminium-silicon E-glass with the alkaline oxides content of less than 1% and titanium white (TiO2) have been used. Key words: blend, composite, mechanical properties, usable properties, glass fibre, titanium white