Novel blends based on EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate) and TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) have been developed and characterized which may find potential applications in the cable and footwear industries.

Investigation of electron beam irradiated EVA/TPU blends leads to significant improvements in performance properties suitable for various technological applications.

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A novel thermoplastic vulcanizate (TPV) based on the blends of ethylene vinyl acetate/thermoplastic polyurethane (EVA/ TPU) at various blend ratios has been developed via dynamic vulcanization at 180 8C using di-(2-tert-butyl peroxy isopropyl) benzene (DTBPIB) peroxide as the cross-linking agent. Modification of the EVA/TPU blends via dynamic crosslinking significantly improves the tensile strength and modulus of the system and the improvement is more significant for EVA/TPU 50/50 and 60/40 blends. AFM study shows that crosslinked EVA particles are dispersed in the continuous TPU matrix and the dispersed EVA domain sizes are relatively smaller in EVA/TPU 50/50 and 60/40 blends leading to good mechanical properties. FTIR spectroscopy has been used to characterize the specific chemical changes occurring due to dynamic vulcanization. This TPV has excellent retention of physicomechanical properties even after reprocessing twice and the blends also have very good thermal resistance as indicated by aging study. The samples were found to exhibit remarkable improvement in oil resistance property as compared to their uncrosslinked counterpart. The creep behavior of the blends significantly improves after dynamic crosslinking and blends with higher TPU content show better creep resistance. Volume resistivity of all the peroxide vulcanized blends is in the range of 10 13 ohm cm, which is suitable for cable sheathing application.