Crystallization and mechanical properties of blends of metallocene short chain branched polyethylene with conventional polyolefins

Metallocene-catalyzed short chain branched polyethylene (SCBPE) was blended with LDPE, HDPE, PS, EPDM and iPP in the weight proportions of 80 and 20. The crystallization and mechanical properties of these blends were studied by PLM, DSC and DMA. It has been observed in PLM that SCBPE/LDPE, SCBPE/HDPE and SCBPE/EPDM can form band spherulites whose band width and size are both smaller than that of the pure SCBPE. Tiny crystallites are observed in the completely immiscible SCBPE/PS blend. The crystallites in SCBPE/iPP are very small and only irregular spherulites are seen. The crystallization kinetics and mechanical properties of SCBPE are greatly affected by the second polyolefin, but in a different way, depending on the phase behavior and the modulus of the second components. SCBPE may be phase miscible in the melt with HDPE, LDPE and EPDM and co-crystallize together with HDPE or LDPE during cooling. A big change of crystal morphology and crystallization kinetics is seen in SCBPE/iPP blend compared with pure SCBPE and the lowest tandelta is also seen for this system. DMA results show that the tensile modulus of the blends has nothing to do with phase behavior, but only depends on the modulus of the second component.