Glass fiber reinforced and β‐nucleating agents regulated polypropylene: A complementary approach and a case study

Abstract

A two-step process for preparing glass fibers (GFs) reinforced b-nucleated PP composites was designed and developed. The complementary approach combined GFs reinforcement and b-nucleating agents regulation using N,N 0 -dicyclohexyl-2,6-napthalenedicarboxamide (TMB-5) in the presence of maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (PP-g-MA) through extrusion blending. The influence of TMB-5 and GFs on the mechanical properties and crystallization behavior of PP was studied by mechanical test, wide-angle Xray diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, and scanning electron microscopy. A distinct complementary effect of GFs and bnucleating agent TMB-5 on mechanical properties and crystallization behavior of PP was observed. Results showed that addition of 20 wt % GFs and 0.1 wt % TMB-5 into PP matrix with the two-step process could lead to significant increase to its mechanical properties: specifically 64.8% improvement in tensile strength, 107.1% enhancement in flexural modulus, and 167.7% increasement in notched impact strength compared to that of neat PP. Furthermore, with the combination of TMB-5 and GFs, not only led to promoted interfacial adhesion, but also significantly improved overall comprehensive mechanical properties. The complementary process provided an alternative approach for the development of PP with balanced toughnesss and stiffness.

Structure evolution upon heating and cooling and its effects on nucleation performance: A review on aromatic amide β‐nucleating agents for isotactic polypropylene

“…The diverse aggregation structure of aromatic amide NA not only showed different β‐nucleating selectivity and nucleation efficiency, but also could induce iPP to crystallize into various crystallization morphologies, such as β‐spherulites, β‐transcrystalline and β‐“flower”‐like agglomerates, which in turn affected the macroscopic properties of the material . Numerous researches have been dedicated to study the effects of NA agglomerates on the properties of iPP, such as mechanical, charge storage, and barrier performances . Those work were very meaningful to regulate the properties of the product by tuning the NA morphology, but this is not the focus in this review.…”

Improving the impact strength of polypropylene/carbon fiber composites via β‐modification and annealing treatment

“…For PP‐β and PP/CF(10%)‐β samples, they showed abundant β‐crystals with smaller size and higher birefringent than α‐crystals, typical grain refinement phenomenon were observed. It suggested that the PA‐01 was an effective β‐nucleating agent to generate abundant β‐crystals in PP matrix …”

β-Nucleation of isotactic polypropylene: Chain structure effects on the effectiveness of two different nucleating agents

“…Despite this problem, DCHT has been used in several other studies, both before [22,23] and after [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] the discoveries of Varga and Menyhárd, including studies of processing effects [32]. Quite recently, combined effects of DCHT nucleation and glass fiber (GF) reinforcement have been studied [33], finding a better performance than in combination of GF and α-nucleation [34]. This combination has, however, already been shown to be effective before, mostly because of an interlayer formation around the fiber [35,36].…”