Effects of processing conditions on the barrier properties of polyethylene (PE)/modified polyamide (MPA) and modified polyethylene (MPE)/polyamide (PA) blends

Abstract

Different modified polyamide (MPA) and modified polyethylene (MPE) resins were prepared by reactive extrusion of different contents of a compatibilizer precursor (CP) with either polyamide (PA) or polyethylene (PE). The MPE and MPA resins were then blow-molded with designed amounts of PA or PE resins to prepare four different sets of MPE/PA and PE/MPA bottles with the same CP, PA, and PE compositions. Somewhat surprisingly, the xylene permeation resistance of the MPE bottles is worse than that of the base PE bottle and decreases consistently as MPE contains more CP. In contrast, the MPE/PA and PE/MPA bottles exhibit much better xylene permeation resistance than that of the base PE bottle, wherein the PE/MPA bottles show significantly better permeation resistance than that of the corresponding MPE/PA bottles prepared at the same blow-molding conditions. On the other hand, it is worth noting that the xylene permeation rate of each of the MPE/PA and PE/MPA bottles prepared at a fixed extrusion temperature reaches a minimum when prepared with an optimum screw speed near 400 rpm. Similarly, at a fixed screw speed, the highest permeation resistance of each PE/MPA bottle is always obtained when prepared at an optimum extrusion temperature of about 230oC. However, the xylene permeation resistance of each MPE/PA bottle improves consistently when prepared at the higher extrusion temperatures used in this study. These interesting phenomena were investigated in terms of the morphology, thermal analysis of the PE/MPA and MPE/PA blends, the compatibility between PE (or MPE) and MPA (or PA), and the viscosity ratios of MPA (or PA) to PE (or MPE) during the blow-molding process. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 76: 1997–2008, 2000