Plastically deformable polyethylene with excellent transparency and stress whitening resistance properties fabricated by constructing massive chain entanglement

Abstract

Stress whitening is one of the most prominent macroscopic defects for polyethylene (PE), which greatly affects the appearance and quality of its commodity. In order to eliminate the stress whitening defects of PE, ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) was blended with PE to fabricated PE/UHMWPE, and the enhanced intermolecular entanglement and stretchability was achieved, which greatly suppressed and impeded the occurrence of heterogeneous plastic deformation and fibrillar bundle structure during applying tensile stress, resulting in the sharply deceased of the nanoscale cavities defects for the sample. And thus, the elimination of stress whitening defects and high‐light transmittance in the visible region with excellent optical transparency performance were successfully achieved for PE/UHMWPE. Moreover, introduction of UHMWPE chains significantly improved the orientation degree and formed a dense oriented crystalline network with fine lamellae for the sample, which highly enhanced the mechanical strength of PE/UHMWPE after applying stress. This work provided a new strategy for developing stress whitening eliminating polyolefin materials with high performance, which was of great significance for sustainable development and environmental friendliness.