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Remarkably improved toughness of isotactic polypropylene realized by introducing star-shaped SEBS and annealing treatment

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Abstract

This work presents an effective approach to improve the impact toughness of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) with the addition of elastomer and maintain the stiffness of materials simultaneously, using star-shaped styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene block copolymer (SEBS) as toughening additive and combining with annealing treatment. It was found that star-shaped SEBS has β nucleation ability on iPP. The increase in both the nucleation rate and crystal growth rate brings about the elevation of overall crystallization rate of iPP with the addition of SEBS. Characterization of the changes in microstructure and mechanical properties of pure iPP and iPP/SEBS blend upon annealing reveals that the introduction of star-shaped SEBS and further annealing treatment at moderate temperature (120–140 °C) demonstrate pronounced synergistic toughening effect on iPP. The iPP with the addition of 15 wt% SEBS has obtained impact strength of 12.8 kJ m−2, 198% higher than that of pure iPP. After annealed at 130 °C for 3 h, the impact strength of iPP alone is 72% higher than that of unannealed iPP, while this value is increased remarkably by 605% for the iPP/SEBS blend. The perfection of crystalline structure and enhanced mobility of chain segments in the amorphous region and consequent microvoids are mainly responsible for the improved toughness of iPP without serious sacrifice of modulus and stiffness realizing by the introduction of star-shaped SEBS elastomer and further annealing treatment.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the project funded by the Priority Academic Program Development (PAPD) of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.

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  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Environmentally Friendly Polymeric Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Photovoltaic Science and Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou, 213164, China

    Jingru Liu & Dongya Guo

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Liu, J., Guo, D. Remarkably improved toughness of isotactic polypropylene realized by introducing star-shaped SEBS and annealing treatment. Polym. Bull. 80, 2985–3003 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-022-04208-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-022-04208-z

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