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Effects of use of coupling agents on the properties of microfibrillar composite based on high-density polyethylene and polyamide-6

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Abstract

Microfibrillar composites from high-density polyethylene (HDPE-75 wt%) and polyamide-6 (PA6-25 wt%) were made through a reactive extrusion at the processing temperature of PA6 in combination with hot stretching to form microfibrillar composites, and injection molding at the melt temperature of HDPE to form final composites. The scanning electron microscope observations demonstrated the formation of the PA6 microfibers during extrusion. Incorporation of PA6 microfibers led to an improvement in both flexural and tensile properties as compared to the neat HDPE. Use of ethylene–glycidyl methacrylate copolymers (E-GMA) in the composites gave the highest tensile modulus, while ethylene, butyl acrylate and maleic anhydride terpolymer (E-BA-MA) led to the highest tensile strength and elongation. The maleic anhydride grafted polyethylene (MAPE) was the most efficient among three coupling agents in improving impact strength. With the addition of 5 wt% E-GMA, E-BA-MA and MAPE, the HDPE/PA6 composites exhibited an improvement of 87, 116, and 387 %, respectively, compared to the uncoupled controls. The PA6 microfibers exhibited a regular orientation along the stretching direction in the presence of 2.5 wt% coupling agents; increasing the loading level of coupling agents caused a reduction in the diameter of PA6 microfibers. FT-IR analyses showed the reactions between PA6 and the coupling agents used.

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Acknowledgments

This study is financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 31010103905), Louisiana Board of Regents (Contract Number: LEQSF-EPS (2011)-OPT-IN-04), Chinese National Science and Technology Support Program (No. 2012BAD32B04), Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of Ministry of Education of China (No. NCET-11-0608), and Korea Forest Research Institute (LSU AgCenter Project).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Bio-based Material Science and Technology (Ministry of Education), Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China

    Tian Liu, Qingwen Wang & Yanjun Xie

  2. Department of Forest Products, Korea Forest Research Institute, Seoul, 130-712, Korea

    Sunyoung Lee

  3. School of Renewable Natural Resources, Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Qinglin Wu

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  1. Tian Liu
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  2. Qingwen Wang
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  3. Yanjun Xie
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Correspondence to Qingwen Wang or Qinglin Wu.

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Liu, T., Wang, Q., Xie, Y. et al. Effects of use of coupling agents on the properties of microfibrillar composite based on high-density polyethylene and polyamide-6. Polym. Bull. 71, 685–703 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-013-1086-x

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