Rheological properties of copolymer modified polyethylene/polystyrene blends

Abstract

In this study, the effect of hydrogenated styrene butadiene diblock copolymers on the rheological properties of high‐density polyethylene (HDPE)/high impact polystyrene (HIPS) blends is investigated. The blends were prepared in the melt state at 180 °C for 5 min in a batch mixer. The results show that the rheological properties of the blends were very sensitive to the copolymer concentration present in the blend mainly in the low frequency region. At low copolymer content (e.g., 1 wt. %), an important decrease of the zero‐shear viscosity (η0) was observed in the case of HIPS rich blends. For the HDPE rich blends, this decrease was not observed when modified with the pure diblock copolymer. As the copolymer content increases, and depending on the copolymer structure, an increase or a further decrease of η0 was obtained. This behavior was interpreted as due to the change in the copolymer state in the blend, i.e., saturation of the interface and micelles formation. Predictions of an emulsion model of two viscoelastic liquids including an interfacial tension (σ) contribution to the elastic properties were close to the experiments for the 90/10 and 20/80 HDPE/HIPS unmodified blends, but unsatisfactory in the other cases. According to the general features of polymer suspensions and to the predictions of this model, it is concluded that phase interactions as produced by the addition of the copolymer are very important. This aspect must be included in any rheological model for copolymer modified immiscible blends.