Rheological behavior of polyamide-6/linear low density polyethylene grafted maleic anhydride/monmorillonite nanocomposites and statistical model

Abstract

Polyamide 6 (PA6) with different linear low density polyethylene grafted maleic anhydride (LDPE-g-MAH) and montmorillonite (MMT) loadings were produced by melt compounding using single screw extruder. In this study a mixture design of experiment covered three ingredients which contribute to the rheological properties, PA6, LLDPE-g-MAH and MMT multiple level setting were studied on their rheological properties. The rheological test conducted via capillary rheometer to obtain apparent rheological properties which were been converted to real rheological properties through Bagley correction. The additional of LLDPE-g-MAH has increased the viscosity of the system at low shear rate contributed by the interfacial reaction between PA6 with functional group of LLDPE-g-MAH. The bonding between PA6 and LLDPE-g-MAH was sensitive to shear thus no significant different in viscosity observed at high shear rate with different level of LLDPE-g-MAH. However, the incorporation of MMT has shown to lower the overall viscosity due to good dispersion of MMT results in higher interaction induced between polymer chain which was stronger than the adhesion forces between the polymer chain and the die surface wall. The rheological data used to predict the fluid consistency coefficient (m) and flow behavior index (n) within the design space. where m = 28.07PA6 + 448.67LLDPE -840.73MMT n = 0.00560PA6 - 0.01099LLDPE + 0.02946MMT PA6 is PA6 content in wt % from 85% to 100% LLDPE is LLDPE-g-MAH content in wt % from 0% to 10% MMT is MMT content in wt % from 0% to 5%