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pps proceeding
Symposium: S06 - Polymer Nanocomposites
Oral Presentation
 
 

Reactive nanofibrillated PP/PET composites with superior mechanical properties made by spunbonding

Soltani Iman (1)*, Mark Lun Howe (1), Jalali Amirjalal (1), Akrami Hamidreza (1), Zhao Chongxiang (1), Lee Patrick C. (1), Park Chul B. (1)

(1) University of Toronto - Ontario - Canada

Spunbonding is the most popular technique to produce nonwoven mats directly from plastic pellets. It is due to its high throughput and the desired quality of the final products. In order to develop nano-fibrillated composites (NFC), we used our newly custom-designed innovative spunbonding machine, which is equipped with a twin-screw extruder. Polypropylene (PP), as the matrix, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) dispersions were blended by the tailor-made twin-screw extruder of the spunbonding machine. Upon exiting the extruder, the blends were melt-spun via the spunbonding spinneret capillary holes, and they were drawn by an intensive air flow blown through a drafter. The resulting spun microfibers, with island-in-the-sea internal morphologies were collected on a conveying belt underneath the drafter. Then, upon being bonded by passing through the calendering mills, the spunbond nonwoven is made, which is later melt-pressed into NFC. Accordingly, we generated simple and reactive NFC based on polypropylene with superior mechanical properties compared with the simple polymer. The storage modulus of the simple NFC, measured with the small amplitude oscillatory shear (SAOS) experiments, showed over 200-fold increase compared with that of the pristine PP. This dramatic improvement is the result of reaching to the average diameter of lower than 100nm for the PET nanofibers inside the PP matrix, demonstrated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging. The reactive NFC were also made using PP-MAH, as the coupling agent, to show further improvement compared with the simple one. The reactive NFC, owing to the compatibilizing effect of the coupling agent, showed inner PET nanofibers with average diameters of less than 50nm. This very low inner fiber diameter and the resulting increased surface area contributed to the NFC superior properties.