Manufacturing and foaming of high melt viscosity of polypropylene by using electron beam radiation technology

The high melt viscosity of polypropylene was studied by grafting bifunctional monomers, 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate (HDDA) and tripropylene glycol diacrylate (TPGDA), onto homopolypropylene (HPP) and random ter-polypropylene (RTPP) under electron-beam irradiation. Creation of the high-melt-viscosity polypropylene was possible at low radiation dosage and low monomer content, under a prohibition of both radiation degradation and homopolymerization. TPGDA monomer was more effective in increasing the melt viscosity of HPP compared with RTPP, whereas HDDA monomer was more effective for enhancing the melt viscosity of RTPP. Such different effects of monomers on melt viscosity may arise from different monomer structures, namely, TPGDA has additional three methyl groups, but HDDA has no methyl groups. Electron-beam radiation technology, on an increase of the melt viscosity, was much more effective in HPP than RTPP, when compared with virgin polymers. Modified RTPP and HPP with high melt viscosity were capable of foaming with numerous fine cells, of which the modified HPP with 1.5 mmol TPGDA and 0.5 kGy could create more spherical foam cells and its bending strength was 1.5 times more than that of the foamed RTPP.