Blend Composition Dependence of the Compatibilizing Efficiency of Graft Copolymers for Immiscible Polymer Blends

This work is concerned with the dependence of the compatibilizing efficiency of graft copolymers on the composition of immiscible polymer blends. A series of graft copolymers of polystyrene (PS) and polyamide 6 (PA6), denoted as PS-g-PA6, with different molecular structures were used as compatibilizers. The PS-g-PA6 was more efficient for the PS/PA6 (80/20) blend than for the PS/PA6 (20/80) one, indicating that a graft copolymer whose backbone and grafts match the matrix and the disperse phase polymers, respectively, has higher compatibilizing efficiency. This is in disagreement with the literature. Moreover, whatever the blend composition, for PS-g-PA6 graft copolymers with the same backbone and the same number of grafts per backbone, the longer the grafts, the higher their compatibilizing and stabilizing efficiency; for a given backbone/graft mass ratio, the longer the grafts and concomitantly the smaller the number of grafts per backbone, the higher the compatibilizing and stabilizing efficiency of the graft copolymer. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 50:2243-2251,2010. (C) 2010 Society of Plastics Engineers