The effect of molecular structure of polypropylene on stretchability for biaxially oriented film

Biaxially oriented polypropylene films are widely used for food packaging and industrial films. Recently, machine speed has been increasing in order to obtain higher production rate, and film thickness has become thinner to reduce the environmental load. The customers' requirements for better production ability and thinner films have been becoming more demanding, but their demands are not always met because of lack of film stretchability in the final product. To meet the demands, research on stretchability has been conducted with the goal of finding the optimum polypropylene molecular structure for developing a new product by analyzing stretching force–strain data using a table tenter, which was thought to be the parameter of stretchability. It was found that low crystallinity and wide molecular weight distribution were effective in improving the stretchability from the table tenter test. By running the test with a sequential and biaxially oriented stretching machine, it was verified that samples produced by the above designed polymer indicated good thickness uniformity, which was considered to be the barometer of stretchability. Furthermore, it was concluded that analyzing the stretching force–strain data obtained from a table tenter is a good method to predict machine speed and film thickness. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2012. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers