Study of masterbatch effect on miscibility and morphology in PET/HDPE blends

The present work studies the morphology in poly(ethylene-terephthalate)/polyethylene (PET/HDPE) polymer blends and its impact on blend properties. Mixing process in blend preparation is the important parameter for the type of obtained blend morphology and final blend properties, so two different mixing processes were used. In the first one, all components are mixed together while another one includes two step mixing procedure using two different types of masterbatch as compatibilizers for PET/HDPE system. Such blends can be considered in terms of PET polymer recycling in the presence of HDPE impurities in order to find suitable compatibilizers, which will enhance the interactions between these two polymers and represents the possible solution in recycling of heterogeneous polymer waste. The morphology of the studied PET/HDPE blends was inspected by scanning electron microscopy to examine the influence of the mixing process and various compositions on blends morphology, and interactions between PET and HDPE. The surface properties were characterized by contact angle measurements. The effect of the extrusion on the samples thermal behaviour was followed by DSC measurements. FTIR spectroscopy was used for the determination of interactions between blend constituents. It can be concluded that the type of mixing process and the carefully chosen compatibilizer are the important factors for obtaining the improved compatibility in PET/HDPE blends.