ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF POLYMERIC AND PARTICULATE COMPONENTS OF ACRYLONITRILE-BUTADIENE-STYRENE (ABS) PLASTICS BY THERMAL FIELD-FLOW FRACTIONATION

Thermal field-flow fractionation (ThFFF) is shown here to be capable o f isolating the polymeric and rubber particulate components of acrylon itrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plastic in a simple analytical procedur e. To facilitate the separation, the ionic strength of the two carrier liquids used here (THF and DMF) was brought up to 0.10 mM to increase the retention of the rubber particles. At a field strength (temperatu re drop) Delta T of 50 K, the two components were well separated, alth ough the polymer component was not completely resolved from the void p eak due to its low molecular weight. To facilitate a more rapid separa tion of the components, both field programming and high flow-rate cond itions were examined in some detail. Both the particle-size distributi on (PSD) of the rubber particles and the molecular weight distribution (MWD) of the polymer components were obtained using ThFFF. Measured M WD and PSD agreed favorably with PSD determined by dynamic light scatt ering and MWD obtained by size-exclusion chromatography. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.