Effects of Terpolymer Addition on the Thermal and Termomechanical Properties of Poly(Phenylene Sulfide)

Poly(phenylene sulfide) (PPS) is one of the high-performance engineering polymers and it exhibits superior behavior, such as electrical insulation, dimensional and thermal stability, chemical resistance for various industrial applications. In addition to this, PPS has a high degree of crystallinity and it maintains these properties at high temperatures. These advantageous properties of PPS can be dependent on its chemical structure, composed of phenyl groups linked by a sulfur atom, which gives rigidity to the polymer chains. Owing to these properties, PPS is widely used in electrical and electronic components, automobile industry and mechanical applications. On the other hand, brittleness of PPS restricts its further applications. For this reason, ethylene-acrylic esterglycidyl methacrylate terpolymer (Lotader (R) - AX8900) was used to overcome the brittleness of PPS. The effects of terpolymer addition on the thermal and thermomechanical properties of blends were investigated in this study. PPS/Lotader (0, 2, 5, 10 wt.% Lotader (R)) blends of various compositions were prepared. The blends were prepared by using laboratory scale micro compounder and injection molding machine. Thermomechanical and thermal properties of blends were investigated by means of dynamic mechanic analysis and differential scanning calorimeter test methods. As a result of this study, it was found that increasing loading level of Lotader (R) significantly decreased the crystallinity and increased glass transition temperature of PPS. On the other hand, Lotader (R) addition did not affect the melting temperature of PPS considerably. Results of dynamic mechanic analysis test revealed that while damping factor peak and loss modulus values of blends increased with the addition of Lotader (R), storage modulus of blends decreased with the increasing loading level of Lotader (R). When all test results are considered, it can be concluded that Lotader addition changes the brittle nature of PPS to ductile nature. In addition to this, 2 wt.% Lotader addition to PPS enables the optimum ductility for PPS without deteriorating its other properties.