Morphology, thermal, and mechanical properties of acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene/carbon black composites

Abstract

AbstractAcrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS) polymers are susceptible to degradation that increases the yellowness of the polymer, distorts the surface glossy, and affects the mechanical properties. One way to protect ABS against degradation is the addition of carbon black (CB) that can act as a stabilizer. In this work, CB was dispersed in ABS through melt‐compounding. Electron microscopy was used to study the morphology of the filled‐ and unfilled‐ABS, and revealed that the CB particles/aggregates were distributed within the styrene–acrylonitrile (SAN) phase and around the PB phase. The results of the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy showed that upon processing of ABS, crosslinking in the polybutadiene (PB) phase was the governing degradation mechanism. Increasing the CB content resulted in increasing the heat stability of the ABS/CB compounds, which was confirmed by thermogravimetric analysis. The DTA results showed that the PB degradation peak occurring at about 395°C was disappeared by addition of CB. Impact strength test was performed to study the effect of CB on the toughness of ABS. Impact strength was reduced with increasing CB loading. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007