Morphology and mechanical properties of Acrylonitrile‐styrene‐acrylate toughened plastics with block copolymer chain structure

Abstract

Acrylonitrile‐styrene‐acrylate (ASA) toughened plastics based on block copolymers are successfully prepared via RAFT emulsion polymerization and various molecular structures are designed to have different morphologies in order to investigate the relationship between morphologies and mechanical properties. All materials prepared by blending exhibit sea‐island morphology. Promoting particles dispersion and increasing spherical particle size shorten surface‐to‐surface interparticle distance and help to improve tensile properties of materials. Enlarging particles through crosslinked structures are found to be a more effective method to improve tensile toughness, at the cost of a slight reduction in tensile yield strength. Larger spherical particles with crosslinked structures are found to help improving the Izod notched impact strength of materials. However, the existence of a SAN core decreases the material's ability to withstand impact. Compared to blended samples, triblock copolymer materials display higher flexural strength with equal flexural modulus. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:389–395, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers

Mechanical, thermal properties and shape memory behaviors of PLA/PCL/PLA‐g‐GMA blends

“…The cross‐section morphology of PLA, PLA/PCL, and compatibilized blends was studied to explore the compatibilization effect, as shown in Figure 5E and Figure S4. PLA displayed a smooth fracture surface indicating its high brittleness, while PLA/PCL showed an obvious sea‐island structure [ 17 ] demonstrating incompatible PLA and PCL phases. After the addition of PLA‐g‐GMA, PLA/PCL/GMA blends exhibited blurry phase interface, and the size of PCL became small, which signifies the compatibility of blends was improved.…”

Enzyme-Induced “Sea–Island” Structure Reinforced Bio-Based Adhesive: Toward High Bonding Strength, Toughness, and Bacterial Resistance

“…Typically, nanometer/micron microspheres as “island” are uniformly embedded within a polymer “sea”, forming a heterogeneous system. , When subjected to stress, the local shear and yield deformation of these spherical particles make them ideal candidates for toughening components, inducing the formation of silver stripes and shear banding . This helps to absorb rupture energy and prevent the propagation of destructive cracks, thus improving toughness of the polymers. , In addition to the “island” toughening effect, the “bridge” interactions also play an important role in facilitating energy consumption effects such as stress transmission, stretching, and deformation of the molecular network of substrates . Additionally, the effective “bridge” interactions can turn microsphere “island” into the cross-linking domains, significantly improving the cross-linking density thus enhancing the cohesion force of the materials .…”

“…17 This helps to absorb rupture energy and prevent the propagation of destructive cracks, thus improving toughness of the polymers. 18,19 In addition to the "island" toughening effect, the "bridge" interactions also play an important role in facilitating energy consumption effects such as stress transmission, stretching, and deformation of the molecular network of substrates. 20 Additionally, the effective "bridge" interactions can turn microsphere "island" into the cross-linking domains, significantly improving the cross-linking density thus enhancing the cohesion force of the materials.…”

Synthesis and property of EPEG‐based polycarboxylate ether superplasticizers via RAFT polymerization

“…Recently, living/controllable radical polymerization (CPR) techniques such as atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization have been attempted to synthesize well-defined functional polymers. [28][29][30][31] Accordingly, the PCEs with regular structure, versatility, and high reactivity have been paid much attention. As a rapidly developing controllable/active polymerization technology, RAFT polymerization has been widely used in the molecular structure design and synthesis of functional polymer materials.…”