REACTIVE BLENDING OF POLY(ETHYLENE-TEREPHTHALATE) WITH ETHYLENE-PROPYLENE RUBBER

A gram-scale miniature reactor designed for reactive blendind was intr oduced. A brief review was given on the light scattering method for mo rphology characterization and the ellipsometric analysis on polymer-po lymer interface. These methods were applied for the reactive blending of poly(ethylene terephthalate) with ethylene-propylene rubber (70/30 PET/EPR). Compared with non-reactive system, the reactive one yielded finer dispersion of rubber particles. It showed better stability of pa rticle dispersion during static annealing. The reactive system with th ick interface showed higher impact strength than the non-reactive one having same particle size but thinner interface, suggesting that the t hick interface may be a prerequisite to the rubber toughening.