Preparation and characterization of microcellular foamed thermoplastic polyamide elastomer composite consisting of EVA/TPAE1012

Abstract

Thermoplastic polyamide elastomer (TPAE) is a kind of high‐performance elastomers prepared from nylon hard segments and polyether or polyester soft segments. The hard segments endow TPAE with excellent mechanical properties, while the soft segments provide the desired elasticity. Therefore, the development of TPAE as a high‐performance foam material has broad application prospects. In this work, ethylene‐vinyl acetate copolymer/polyamide‐1012 elastomer (EVA/TPAE1012) composite materials with different compositions were prepared, using ethylene‐vinyl acetate /maleic anhydride graft copolymer (EVA‐g‐MAH) as compatibilizer. Then, EVA/TPAE foamed materials were fabricated by chemical foaming method and batch foaming process, with azodicarbonamide as blowing agent. The resulting composite foams were tested in terms of density, cell properties hardness, resilience, compression recovery, and mechanical strength. The EVA/TPAE1012 foam has a low density (0.14 g cm−3), small cell size (approximately 62.1 μm), and a high cell density (3.08 × 107 cells cm−3). Compared with pure EVA foam, the composite foam not only has an increase in specific strength, resilience and tearing strength, but also has good toughness, which greatly improves the resulting foams' expansion ratio and elongation at break.

Structure and morphology of thermoplastic polyamide 6 elastomers with different soft segment content and their foaming behavior using supercriticalCO2

“…The cell density of the foamed sample was calculated by Equation (5). [ 29 ] Among them, N is the number of cells in the SEM images, A is the area of the SEM picture (cm 2 ), and is the expansion rate of foaming materials.…”

Preparation Methods, Performance Improvement Strategies, and Typical Applications of Polyamide Foams

“…Choosing suitable precursors can achieve the effect of “1 + 1 > 2”. Very recently, our group introduced high-performance thermoplastic polyamide elastomer (TPAE, a kind of PEBA) materials into the traditional EVA foam materials, which not only reduced the amount of TPAE for the purpose to save cost but also improved the performance of EVA foams . As shown in Figure a, the results showed that the density of EVA/TPAE foam reached 0.14 g cm –3 .…”

“…(a) Density and foaming ratio of EVA/TPAE1012 foaming material (solid lines show density, and dashed lines show foaming ratio), cell distribution curves with TPAE1012 content of 10%, trousers tearing strength curve of EVA/TPAE1012 foam with different additions of FAs. Reproduced with permission from ref . Copyright 2021, John Wiley and Sons.…”

EPDM‐g‐MAH toughened bio‐based polyamide 56 to prepare thermoplastic polyamide elastomer and the performance characterization

“…Polyamide elastomers with large differences in properties will be obtained ultimately. 24 TPAE can also be polymerized by polyamide and elastomer. The preparation method of polyamide elastomer is divided into solution polymerization method and melt polymerization method.…”