The recent growth in the post‐consumer recycling of plastics presents an opportunity for developing new, value‐added blend products from the recycled polymers. However, in order to develop blends with useful performance characteristics, suitable techniques of compatibilization and impact modification must be employed. In this study, reactive toughening and compatibilization techniques have been found to be particularly useful in achieving high thermal embrittlement resistance in the blends of recycled poly(ethylene terephthalate) containing functionalized ethylene copolymers and polycarbonate. Reactive compatibilization of recycled polyolefin blends with poly(ethylene terephthalate) and polyamide has also been investigated.

SynopsisThe composition of polymer blends and alloys and the crystallinity and crystallite size/perfection of each of the components are determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) methods. A profile-fitting procedure is used to resolve the XRD scan into crystalline and amorphous peaks corresponding to each of the polymers. The procedure uses templates derived from the XRD scans of the homopolymers as constraints. The usefulness of this method for studying the influence of blending and grafting is illustrated by analyzing the data from two-component blends with and without the graft copolymer compatibilizer.