HIGH PERFORMANCE THERMOPLASTIC VULCANIZATES BASED ON NATURAL RUBBER BY ELECTRON INDUCED REACTIVE PROCESSING

摘要

Electron induced reactive processing (EIReP) - an eco-friendly and sustainable reactive processing method based on the use of high energy electrons - was used for crosslinking of the elastomeric domain during melt mixing in order to prepare natural rubber (NR) and polypropylene (PP) based thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs). The electron treatment with various absorbed dose values showed a prominent effect on mechanical, rheological, and morphological characteristics of the PP/NR TPV. SEM and TEM studies confirmed that these TPVs can exist across the co-continuous or discrete phase morphology. The maximum set of mechanical properties (tensile strength of 15 MPa and elongation at break of more than 500 %) were obtained at an absorbed dose of 100 kGy for a 50/50 blend ratio of NR and PP without addition of any compatibilizer or chemicals. At higher absorbed dose values the degradation of polypropylene showed a negative impact on the mechanical properties of the TPVs. Depending on the morphology and the results of tensile test a structure-property co-relationship is drawn on the basis of common phenomenological understanding of the TPVs.