EFFECTS OF CHEMICAL MODIFICATION OF LIQUID-CRYSTALLINE POLYMER ON THE RHEOLOGICAL, MORPHOLOGICAL, AND MECHANICAL-PROPERTIES OF NYLON-6 LIQUID-CRYSTALLINE POLYMER BLENDS

A liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) is chemically modified with maleic anhydride, and then its effects on the rheological, morphological, and mechanical properties of nylon 6/LCP blends are investigated. The complex and shear viscosities of nylon 6/modified LCP blends are higher than those of nylon 6/unmodified LCP blends over the entire frequency and shear rate range examined. In the plots of log G' versus log G '', the modified LCP blends show more elastic properties as compared with the unmodified blends. The morphology of fracture surface shows that the domain size and its distribution of the modified LCP blends are finer and more uniform than those for the unmodified ones. The mechanical properties of the modified LCP blends are better than those of the unmodified LCP ones. These results are attributed to the formation of in situ graft copolymer resulting from the reaction between maleic anhydride grafted onto LCP and the terminal amine group of nylon 6.