Thermoplastic elastomer blend based on EMA and NBR; optimization of process parameters

Abstract

EMA-NBR has been explored to be a potential thermoplastic elastomer blend having good thermal stability as well as oil resistance property. The present investigation reports the optimization of process parameters for the novel polymer blends based on poly(ethylene-co-methyl acrylate) (EMA) and poly(acrylonitrile-co-butadiene) rubber (NBR) with criteria based on the statistical design of experiment (Taguchi L9 orthogonal array). In this case, the polymer blends were prepared by changing the polymer blending conditions such as mixing temperature, mixing time and rotor speed as per Taguchi's L9 orthogonal array. Optimization of the process parameters was carried out based on the physicomechanical properties such as tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness, and tensile impact strength of the resulting EMA/NBR blend. Each processing parameter has been optimized from the experimental data, which are converted into signal-to-noise ratio. The standard statistical technique of analysis of variance result was used to evaluate the proportional role of the different control variables. It has been found that the mixing temperature play very significant role trailed by rotor speed and mixing time in controlling droplet matrix morphology of the EMA/NBR blends. Predominantly, these factors affect the size of the NBR domain and its distribution in the EMA matrix, which in turn have a notable contribution to the physicomechanical properties of the blends. By the optimization of processing conditions, the NBR matrix domain size greatly decreases, leading to significant improvement in physicomechanical properties of the EMA/NBR blends.

High vinyl polybutadiene rubber/polypropylene thermoplastic elastomer blends: Optimization of internal mixing process parameters and screening of processing methods

“…29 The literature has already reported the Taguchi method to optimize processing parameters for polymer blends, and the signal-to-noise ratio and variance are used to evaluate the deviation from the expected value and select the optimum processing parameters. 30,31 In addition to the above three processing parameters, feeding mode may also be important for multiphase polymer materials. 32,33 Feeding mode for producing TPVs can be either static vulcanization or dynamic vulcanization.…”

“…This work aims to optimize processing parameters (rotor speed, temperature and mixing time) for HVPB/PP TPVs based on the Taguchi design of experiments 29 . The literature has already reported the Taguchi method to optimize processing parameters for polymer blends, and the signal‐to‐noise ratio and variance are used to evaluate the deviation from the expected value and select the optimum processing parameters 30,31 …”

Preparation and properties of reinforced SEBS‐based thermoplastic elastomers modified by PA6

“…[11] Due to the advantage of combining desirable properties of several polymer components, blending technology has become an established method for producing multifunctional thermoplastic materials. [12][13][14] Polyamide 6 (PA6) has attracted wide attention as they posed high mechanical strength and wear resistance [15,16] and often used as a reinforcer in various polar composite materials to form polymer alloy systems and overcome the shortages of single polymers, such as PS/PA6 [17] and PPS/PA6. [18] If PA6 is directly melt blended with nonpolar materials, it will bring the problem of lower mechanical strength due to the large difference in polarity, which is usually improved by adding a reactive compatibilizer grafted maleic anhydride (MAH) to form a core-shell structure and reduce the interfacial tension.…”