High‐impact toughness poly(vinyl chloride)/(α‐methylstyrene)‐acrylonitrile‐butadiene‐styrene copolymer/acrylic resin blends: Thermal properties and toughening mechanism

High impact toughness poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC)/(α‐methylstyrene)‐acrylonitrile‐butadiene‐styrene copolymer (70/30)/acrylic resin (ACR) blends were prepared. Incorporation of ACR did not play a negative role in thermal properties. The glass transition temperature, heat distortion temperature, and thermal stability remained constant as ACR content increased. With the addition of 10 phr (parts by weight per hundred parts of resin) of ACR, the impact strength increased by 20.0 times and 7.2 times compared with that of pure PVC and that of PVC/(α‐methylstyrene)‐acrylonitrile‐butadiene‐styrene copolymer (70/30) blends, respectively. However, tensile strength and flexural properties decreased. The morphology changed from domain distortions to crazing with fibrillar plastic deformation as ACR content increased. The toughening mechanism varied from “shear yielding” to “craze with shear yielding,” which depended on the content of ACR. This study presents the finding that addition of ACR drastically improved impact toughness without sacrificing any heat resistance, and the enhanced impact strength could be at the same level of supertough nylon. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 21:205–214, 2015. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers