Enhancing the Interface Behavior on Polycarbonate/Elastomeric Blends: Morphological, Structural, and Thermal Characterization

Abstract

A systematic study was performed to provide better understanding of the effect of elastomeric materials on the behavior of polycarbonate blends (PC). Thus, blends of PC with different amounts of elastomers, such as copolyether ester elastomer (COPE), acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS), maleic anhydride-grafted ABS (ABS-g-MA), and styrene–ethylene–butylene–styrene (SEBS-g-MA) were prepared in a co-rotating twin-screw extruder. The materials were characterized by an electronic microscopy (SEM), an infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and thermal (DSC) and thermo-mechanical (DMA) techniques. The incorporation of elastomeric phases was observed by changes in the FTIR band’s intensity, whereas a new shoulder of the ester band of COPE at 1728 cm−1 indicates the occurrence of a transesterification reaction. Unmodified and modified ABS (5% and 10%) did not affect the glass transition temperature (Tg) of PC, while 1% SEBS-g-MA slightly increased this value. PC/10% COPE showed that a decrease in Tg of 25 °C has a result of better compatibilization between both phases, which is visible via SEM. SEM analysis identified three main toughening mechanisms, depending on the type of elastomer. Unlike any other study, this work deepens the knowledge, in a comparative way, to understand the elastomeric effect at the interface and consequently, on the mechanical behavior of PC systems.

Effects of Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jet on 3D-Printed Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS)

“…However, even if the studied polymer does not contain native O, such bands containing oxygen are found and identified due to the plasma treatment and exposure to the environment. As in graphs from Figure 6a,b, the material identification elements are present, confirming the authenticity of the material used as being ABS through its constituent components: the band at wave number 1494 cm −1 attributed to styrene, the one at 1637 cm −1 attributed to butadiene, and the band at wave number 2238 cm −1 assigned to acrylonitrile [1,35,[75][76][77].…”

“…Table 5. Characteristic wavenumbers (cm −1 ) for ABS samples, as reported by [1,35,[75][76][77]. However, even if the studied polymer does not contain native O, such bands containing oxygen are found and identified due to the plasma treatment and exposure to the environment.…”

“…Multiple studies in the literature analyze how FDM process parameters affect the mechanical properties of printed polymers. These studies emphasize the importance of researching the impact of operational parameters of additive manufacturing on the final result [32][33][34][35].…”

Fatigue Behavior of Rotary Friction Welding of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene and Polycarbonate Dissimilar Materials

“…The fatigue test specimen was also a cylindrical rod with a diameter of 15 mm and a length of 150 mm. The specimens were printed using a three-dimensional printing apparatus called fused deposition modeling (FDM) (Teklink smart solution Inc., New Taipei City, Taiwan) with two different kinds of thermoplastic filaments, i.e., ABS (Thunder 3D Inc., New Taipei City, Taiwan) and PC (Thunder 3D Inc., New Taipei City, Taiwan) [ 25 , 26 , 27 ]. The printing parameters for the ABS specimens involved a printing bed temperature of 100 °C, a printing speed of 80 mm/s, a printing temperature of 230 °C, and a layer thickness of 0.4 mm [ 28 ].…”