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Nucleating agent induced impact fracture behavior change in PP/POE blend

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Abstract

This work was focused on the impact fracture behavior of polypropylene/ethylene-octene copolymer (PP/POE) blends with and without nucleating agent (NA). The crystallization morphologies of injection-molded-bar were analyzed by polarization optical microscope and the impact-fractured surface morphologies were characterized carefully through scanning electronic microscope. Our results show that the addition of 0.2 wt% α/or β-NA induces the great decrease of spherulites diameters companioned with the dramatically enhancement of PP/POE blend toughness. Virgin PP shows the typical brittle-fractured characteristic during the whole fracture process. PP/POE shows the less-ductile fracture feature with multiple-craze formation. The addition of NA into PP/POE blend changes the fractured surface feature from predominantly multiple-craze to predominantly shear yielding or shear yielding involving materials cavitations and second-crack re-initiation, respectively, indicating the change from brittle-like fracture mode to ductile fracture mode. The transformation of β → α during the impact process for β-NA nucleated samples has been observed; however, such transformation is suppressed by the presence of POE.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our sincere thanks to National Natural Science and Technology Foundation (No. 50403019) and Sichuan Youthful Science and Technology Foundation (07ZQ026-003) (P.R. China) for supporting this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, 610031, Chengdu, China

    Hongwei Bai, Yong Wang, Bo Song, Ximei Fan, Zuowan Zhou & Yanli Li

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  1. Hongwei Bai
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  2. Yong Wang
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  3. Bo Song
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Correspondence to Yong Wang.

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Bai, H., Wang, Y., Song, B. et al. Nucleating agent induced impact fracture behavior change in PP/POE blend. Polym. Bull. 62, 405–419 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-008-0019-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-008-0019-6

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