Processing of polyolefin blends in supercritical propane solution

New polymer blending methods are developed and studied by processing polyolefins in supercritical propane in this research. Polypropylene and ethylene copolymers were dissolved in supercritical propane, and processed via various paths and reactions, i.e., RESS (rapid expansion of supercritical solution), ICSS (isobaric crystallization from supercritical solution), and thermoplastic vulcanizate (TPV) formation. Each process resulted in a unique morphology of polyolefin blends. The effect of polyolefin microstructure on the solution behavior in supercritical propane was investigated, and the relationship between the morphology of the polyolefin blends and processing paths in supercritical propane solutions was established.; To understand the thermodynamic properties of polyolefins in bulk and solutions, the solubility parameter was estimated by measurement of the internal pressure from the experimental P-V-T data for polyolefins in the melt state. As the short chain branch content in the ethylene copolymers increased, the internal pressure decreased. The cloud-point pressures of binary polymer solutions in propane decreased as the extent of short chain branching increased in the ethylene copolymers. At the same degree of branching, the cloud-point pressure decreased slightly with increasing branch length. The cloud-point pressures of a ternary polymer solution in the pressure-temperature phase diagrams were higher than those of binary polymer solutions at the same composition (indicating poorer solubility).; Microfibers and microparticles (10 {dollar}sim{dollar} 50 {dollar}mu{dollar}m diameter) were precipitated from the RESS process while microcellular foams were obtained from the ICSS process. The phase domains of the ethylene-butene (EB) copolymer in the polypropylene from the RESS process were smaller for highly branched EB copolymer. The surface morphology of ethylene copolymers in the microcelluar foams was also changed by increasing the branch content from microparticles to a viscous layer. New TPVs were synthesized in supercritical solutions of polypropylene and EPDM by crosslinking the latter. The domain sizes of EPDM in the TPVs for various compositions were smaller (10 {dollar}sim{dollar} 50 {dollar}mu{dollar}m) than those from melt-blends (100 {dollar}sim{dollar} 400 {dollar}mu{dollar}m), because of the high dispersion of two components in supercritical propane solution and the presence of the crosslinks.