Rubber-toughened polypropylene/acrylonitrile-co-butadiene-co-styrene blends:: Morphology and mechanical properties

The RTPP/ABS (rubber toughened polypropylene/poly (acrylonitrile-co-butadiene-co-styrene) blends, both noncompatibilized and compatibilized with polypropylene-g-polystyrene, were prepared by melt mixing in a Brabender Plasti-Corder. As the torque ratio of RTPP and ABS was about 2, phase cocontinuity in the blends was achieved at ABS volume fractions around 0.16, which was evidenced by both microscopic analysis and mechanical testing. A new microscopic and image analysis technique was introduced, whose combination provides two semiquantitative parameters: structure roughness and structure cocontinuity. The latter parameter is closely associated with the predictive scheme based on the equivalent box model and percolation theory, which was used in this study. The predicted mechanical properties were confronted with the experimental data for tensile modulus, yield strength, and tensile impact strength. While the modulus of noncompatibilized blends is reasonably fitted by the model, the compatibilizer accounts for a positive deviation attributed to a strong interaction between the compatibilizer and the matrix. The yield strength of noncompatibilized blends indicates poor interfacial adhesion, which is so enhanced by the compatibilizer that no phase debonding occurs before yielding. Tensile impact strength, in contrast to modulus and yield strength, passes through a deep minimum for both types of blends; two tentative explanations of this detrimental behavior were suggested.