Physical and Reactive Blending of Linear Low Density Polyethylene with Copolyamide 6/6.9

Abstract

Physical and reactive LLDPE/copolyamide 6/6.9 blends have been produced and characterized. Reactive blending has been performed in the presence of various low levels of high-temperature decomposing peroxide and tri-allyl cyanurate crosslinking agent. Whereas a finer morphology in the reactive blends was noted compared with the corresponding physical blends, the tensile properties deteriorated. In fact, some of the physical blends showed interesting properties. In another publication, under similar reactive blending conditions, without gel formation, some PP/ copolyamide 6/6.9 blends showed significant improvements in tensile behavior, compared to their corresponding physical blends. The presently studied reactive LLDPE/ copolyamide 6/6.9 blends always contained some gel, which is believed to cause the inferior tensile properties characterizing these blends.