Improvement of the mechanical property and thermal stability of polypropylene/recycled rubber composite by chemical modification and physical blending

Tai-Chin Chiang; Huan-Li Liu; Lung-Chang Tsai; Tao Jiang; Ning Ma; Fang-Chang Tsai

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-59191-0

Improvement of the mechanical property and thermal stability of polypropylene/recycled rubber composite by chemical modification and physical blending

Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 12;10(1):2432. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-59191-0.

Authors

Tai-Chin Chiang^#¹, Huan-Li Liu^#², Lung-Chang Tsai³, Tao Jiang², Ning Ma⁴, Fang-Chang Tsai⁵

Affiliations

¹ Office of Research and Development, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, 10607, Taipei, Taiwan.
² Hubei Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials, Key Laboratory for the Green Preparation and Application of Functional Materials (Ministry of Education), Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Organic Chemical Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hubei University, Wuhan, 430062, China.
³ College of Biology and Agricultural Resources, Huanggang Normal University, Huanggang, 438000, People's Republic of China.
⁴ College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), Beijing, 100871, People's Republic of China. ningma@pku.edu.cn.
⁵ Hubei Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials, Key Laboratory for the Green Preparation and Application of Functional Materials (Ministry of Education), Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Organic Chemical Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hubei University, Wuhan, 430062, China. tfc0323@gmail.com.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The binary blend materials containing the modified recycled rubber powder with maleic a hydride modified polypropylene thermoplastic elastomer were prepared by dynamic vulcanization and blended with a variety of additives such as activated agent, accelerator, solubilizer, and the crosslinking agent. The thermal properties and mechanical properties including tensile strengths and impact strengths of pristine rubber, polypropylene and their corresponding binary blends were investigated. Besides, the effects of the amount of rubber powder, polypropylene, crosslinking agent, accelerator, activator, and solvent were studied and the microstructures of the pristine rubber, pristine polypropylene, and their corresponding binary blends were observed by scanning electron microscopy. It was found that the compatibilizer could effectively disperse the size of 120 mesh of recycled rubber powder into the polypropylene in the same manner and the homogeneous tear section of the rubber/polypropylene thermoplastic elastomer was obtained. The results on the effects of additives on mechanical and morphological properties of recycled rubber/polypropylene binary blends guide the rational design of novel polymeric composites from recycled polymeric materials.