Melt blending high and low melt point polymers: The effect of blending methodology on the properties of an ethylene vinyl acetate/aliphatic polyketone polymer blen

Polymer blends have proven to be very useful in the plastics industry, and to date, there are various methods used to prepare these blends. The purpose of this research was to evaluate how various melt blending techniques affected the performance of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA)/aliphatic polyketone (PK) polymer blends.;Several polymer blends were compounded utilizing four different compounding techniques. Two of these methods involved compounding on a twin screw extruder and two methods involved compounding on a single screw extruder. The formulations were injection molded into test samples for mechanical, thermal and rheological property evaluation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was also used to examine the blend morphology.;The results show that the compounding method did have significant effects on the properties of the blends. The blends compounded on the twin screw extruder showed that feeding the PK downstream at the secondary feed throat tended to be more beneficial in preserving the strength and elongation of the blend. The blends compounded on the single screw extruder tended to show that the use of a low shear profile mixing screw (i.e. Pulsar$spcircler$ mixing screw) resulted in better strength and elongation. The rheological properties showed that the blends compounded on the twin screw extruder tended to have a lower value of shear modulus (G$spprime$) than the single screw blends.