REACTIVE BLENDING OF POLY(ETHYLENE-TEREPHTHALATE) WITH ETHYLENE-PROPYLENE RUBBER

A gram-scale miniature reactor designed for reactive blendind was introduced. A brief review was given on the light scattering method for morphology characterization and the ellipsometric analysis on polymer-polymer interface. These methods were applied for the reactive blending of poly(ethylene terephthalate) with ethylene-propylene rubber (70/30 PET/EPR). Compared with non-reactive system, the reactive one yielded finer dispersion of rubber particles. It showed better stability of particle dispersion during static annealing. The reactive system with thick interface showed higher impact strength than the non-reactive one having same particle size but thinner interface, suggesting that the thick interface may be a prerequisite to the rubber toughening.