Miscibility and Mechanical Behavior of SAN/NBR Blends

Summary: Aiming the development of high toughness polymer materials, blends of poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) (SAN) and poly(butadiene-co-acrylonitrile) (NBR) rubbers, with contents of acrylonitrile (AN) varying from 21 to 45%, were prepared by casting, coprecipitation and monoscrew extrusion followed by injection molding. SAN/NBR blends, prepared in the compositions (w/w) 90/10, 80/20, 70/30, 60/40, and 50/50, were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Izod impact tests. DSC analyses showed that blends with 33% AN NBR prepared by casting, and with 39% AN NBR prepared by coprecipitation, are partially miscible at 60/40, 70/30 and 80/20 (SAN/NBR) compositions and immiscible for 50/50 compositions. On the other hand, 90/10 SAN/NBR systems were totally miscible. The blends with 45% AN NBR prepared by coprecipitation showed partial miscibility to 50/50, 60/40, 70/30 and 90/10 compositions and total miscibility to 80/20 composition. The NBR addition results in a significant increase in the impact resistance, strongly dependent on the blend composition and the NBR AN content. The best result of impact resistance — 75.2 ± 8.6 (kJ · m⁻²) — was obtained for SAN/NBR 50/50, using 45% AN NBR. This value is 15.7 times bigger than that for pure SAN -4.8 ± 0.7 (kJ · m⁻²).