Role of boron mineral size on thermal, microstructural and mechanical characteristic of IPP

Abstract

This study paves to way to investigate the fundamental characteristics including the crystalline melting temperature, percent crystallinity, crystal structure, unit cell parameters, crystal size, mechanical behaviour, ultimate strength, Modulus and impact strength in the IPP based composites formed by blending of IPP with the varying content levels (5, 10, 15, 20 and 30%) of ulexites having different particle sizes (45 and 75µm). The characterizations of the prepared IPP based composites containing ulexite were performed by means of conventional measurement methods such as Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC), X-ray diffractions and several mechanical tests. The obtained results depicted that the content and particle size of boron mineral presenting in IPP based composites had significant effects on the crucial properties of IPP. Namely, the crystalline melting temperature of IPP increased initially (165.46°C to 168.54°C) when adding 5% of 45µm ulexite into IPP and then, dramatic decrease was observed with the content increment. The addition of 75µm ulexite into to IPP matrix led to consistent decreasing of crystalline melting temperatures of IPP domains. Furthermore, a and b unit cell dimensions of monoclinic structures initially showed the expansions, but then contracted consistently with the increasing of ulexite content. The serious decrement in c unit cell parameter was observed with the increasing of ulexite content for the both particle sizes.Moreover, the remarkable reinforcements were achieved in the ultimate strengths, Young's Modulus and impact strength of the IPP based composites. The maximum improvements in mechanical properties were obtained with the composites containing 5% of 45µm ulexite and mainly 15% of 75µm ulexite. These developments presumably were caused from advance in the alignments and orientations of the IPP chains in the matrix due to presence of ulexite particles.