| Abstract: | We have investigated the mechanical and morphological properties of un‐vulcanized and dynamically vulcanized ethylene propylene diene terpolymer/polypropylene (EPDM/PP) thermoplastic elastomers prepared under various processing conditions and possessing various compositions. After melt‐blending EPDM and PP resins twice in a twin‐screw extruder, the values of tensile strength (σf) of the un‐vulcanized EPDM/PP samples were at most equal to that of the pure EPDM specimen, but were much lower than those of the pure PP specimens. The elongations at break (εf) of the un‐vulcanized EPDM/PP samples were, however, dramatically higher than those of their respective virgin PP resins, and they improved significantly upon increasing the shear viscosity (ηs) of the PP resins. The tensile properties of the dynamically vulcanized EPDM/PP samples were significantly better than those of the corresponding un‐vulcanized EPDM/PP specimens. Similar to the behavior of the un‐vulcanized EPDM/PP specimens, the tensile properties of the dynamically vulcanized EPDM/PP specimens were optimized when prepared at a screw rate of 115 rpm. Morphological analysis revealed that the un‐vulcanized and dynamically vulcanized EPDM/PP specimens both featured many EPDM domains finely dispersed in continuous PP matrices. Such domains were present on the surfaces of the dynamically vulcanized EPDM/PP specimens; the relative sizes of the vulcanized EPDM domains were minimized when the vulcanized EPDM/PP specimens were prepared at the optimal screw rate (115 rpm). In fact, under these conditions, the average sizes of the vulcanized EPDM domains decreased upon increasing the values of ηs of the PP resins used to prepare the vulcanized EPDM/PP specimens. To understand these interesting tensile and morphological properties of the un‐vulcanized and dynamically vulcanized EPDM/PP specimens, we measured the rheological properties of the base polymers and performed energy‐dispersive x‐ray (EDX) analyzes of the compositions of the un‐vulcanized and dynamically vulcanized EPDM/PP specimens. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009 |
