Measurement of dispersion of glass beads in PP matrix

The dispersion of rigid inorganic particles (RIP) in polymer matrix i s d i scussed and an equation for estimation of the dispersion is proposed. The d ispersion of glass beads (GB) in polypropylene (PP) matrix and PP/ethylene- propylene-diene monomer co-polymer (EPDM) blend was measured by means of th ermogravimetric analysis (TGA). It was found that the effects of the filler surface treatment and modification on the uniformity of the glass beads in the PP matrix was insignificant at low filler concentration. But the dispe rsion for the PP filled with the s mall glass beads was better than that of the big GB-filled system. Moreover, the values of the measured weight frac tion of the glass beads were somewhat lower than those of the calculations for PP/EPDM/GB hybrid composites. In other words, no obvious cluster or agg regation phenomenon of the glass beads in the matrix occurs for these syste ms. It suggests that the uniformity of the g lass bead dispersion for PP/EP DM/GB systems is relatively better than that of PP/GB systems.