A ternary hybrid nucleating agent for isotropic polypropylene: Preparation, characterization, and application

A ternary hybrid nucleating agent (THNA) powder was prepared by co-spray drying the fluid mixture of Si-MP/SNa slurry. The THNA was characterized by Fourier transform infrared and thermogravimetric analyses; the results showed that THNA was prepared successfully. The results of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed that THNA was ring-shaped or mushroom cap-shaped and it was uniformly dispersed in the iPP matrix. With the incorporation of THNA (0.2 wt%), the crystallization peak temperature of iPP/THNA increased effectively. The nucleation efficiency and crystallinity were improved to 69% and 58%, respectively. Moreover, the flexural strength, flexural modulus, tensile strength, and impact toughness of iPP/THAN were enhanced to 49.3 MPa, 1,988 MPa, 42 MPa, and 4.93 kJ·m−2, respectively. The transparency was increased to 77.7%, and the haze was reduced to 14.1%. The compound of sodium laurate and inorganic silica/aromatic phosphate had an obvious synergistic effect.

Partial Biodegradable Blend with High Stability against Biodegradation for Fused Deposition Modeling

This research presents a partial biodegradable polymeric blend aimed for large-scale fused deposition modeling (FDM). The literature reports partial biodegradable blends with high contents of fossil fuel-based polymers (>20%) that make them unfriendly to the ecosystem. Furthermore, the reported polymer systems neither present good mechanical strength nor have been investigated in vulnerable environments that results in biodegradation. This research, as a continuity of previous work, presents the stability against biodegradability of a partial biodegradable blend prepared with polylactic acid (PLA) and polypropylene (PP). The blend is designed with intended excess physical interlocking and sufficient chemical grafting, which has only been investigated for thermal and hydrolytic degradation before by the same authors. The research presents, for the first time, ANOVA analysis for the statistical evaluation of endurance against biodegradability. The statistical results are complemented with thermochemical and visual analysis. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) determines the signs of intermolecular interactions that are further confirmed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The thermochemical interactions observed in FTIR and DSC are validated with thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is also used as a visual technique to affirm the physical interlocking. It is concluded that the blend exhibits high stability against soil biodegradation in terms of high mechanical strength and high mass retention percentage.