Volume 10, Issue 4, 2001

Viscoelastic Behaviour of Polypropylene-Based Nanocomposites in the Melt State+

V.F. Shumsky1, E.G. Privalko1, V.M. Karaman1, V.P. Privalko1, R. Walter2, K. Friedrich2, M. Q. Zhang3 and M. Z. Rong3

1Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 02160 Kyiv, Ukraine

2 Institute for Composite Materials (IVW) Ltd, University of Kaiserslautern, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany

3 Key Laboratory for Polymeric Composite and Functional Materials of Ministry of Education, Zhongshan University, Guangzhou 510275, P.R. China

(Received 4/01; accepted 7/01)

abstract

Nanoparticles of the standard pyrogenic Aerosil 1380 (Degussa) pregrafted by γ-irradiation with styrene were melt-compounded with the general purpose isotactic polypropylene (PP) homopolymer by a single-screw extruder. Storage GΆ(w) and loss G²(w) shear moduli of the neat PP (PP-0) and of the nanocomposite with the filler volume content 4.68 % (PP-4.68) were treated to derive the relaxation times spectra h (t) using the NLREG computer program based on Tikhonov’s method of non-linear regularisation. Drastic changes in the pattern, and broadening of the h (t) to longer relaxation times for the PP-4.68 were attributed to the onset of plastic yield of a spatial network of filler particles coated with polymer boundary layer, preceding the macroscopic melt flow.


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