In situ–produced polyurethane-based thermoplastic elastomers: the effect of the acrylonitrile content of the rubber phase

Abstract

We prepared thermoplastic dynamic vulcanizates (TDVs) with an in situ–produced thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) matrix. We used unfilled acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) with different acrylonitrile contents and investigated the effect of the polarity of the rubber phase on the properties of the TDV samples. The results show that the acrylonitrile (AN) content of the rubbers affects the tensile strength and modulus slightly but the strain at break of the TDVs only negligibly. The results of TDVs are in between those of TPU and unfilled NBRs, demonstrating the feasibility of the TPU/NBR combination.