Brittle-tough transition in PP/EPDM blends: effects of interparticle distance and temperature

Abstract

The toughness of PP/EPDM blends was measured over a wide range of temperature (25–132°C) and composition 0–26 wt% EPDM). It was found that increasing temperature and decreasing interparticle distance have equivalent effects on the brittle-tough transition of toughening PP with EPDM, and the shift factor increases with increasing temperature. A correlation was also found between temperature and critical interparticle distance. When critical interparticle distance was plotted versus T g− T, where T g is defined as the brittle-tough transition temperature of the matrix itself, the curves for different blends systems converge to a single master curve.