Study of the Impact of Ionic Liquid on the Reactive Compatibilization of the NBR/EVASH/PP Vulcanized Thermoplatic Elastomer Using the Click Chemistry Technique by Thiol-Ene

Abstract

The dynamic vulcanization technique is a process of crosslinking an elastomer during mixing with a molten state thermoplastic, resulting in a new class of thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs): vulcanized thermoplastics (TPVs). This technique obtains materials with rubber behavior at room temperature, but processed as plastics at high temperatures, especially by extrusion and injection. The advantage of using the process of obtaining thermoplastic elastomers is that traditional elastomers require several steps in their processing. From an environmental point of view, vulcanized thermoplastics are interesting, since these materials keep their properties practically unchanged with direct recycling, without the need for any treatments. The objective of this work was to develop a new system of reactive compatibilization for the PP/NBR mixture, by means of the click chemistry technique by the reaction of the thiol-ene type, using as a compatibilizing agent the addition of EVASH (Poli (ethylene-co-alcoholicvinyl)-co-mercapto-vinyl acetate), resulting from the chemical modification of EVA (poly (acrylonitrile-co-butadiene)) with mercaptan groups by transesterification. The ionic liquid acted as a catalyst, optimizing the transesterification reaction of EVA, to obtain EVASH with a greater presence of -SH to EVA, obtaining more rigid systems due to the click thiol-ene bond.