Super impact strength of blends prepared from regular HIPS and poly(butyl acrylate)‐block‐poly(styrene) obtained by RAFT polymerization |
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Authors: | Francisco J. Enríquez‐Medrano Martín Hernández‐Valdez Hortensia Maldonado‐Textle Patrick Lacroix‐Desmazes Ramiro Guerrero‐Santos |
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Affiliation: | 1. Centro de Investigación en Química Aplicada, Blvd. Enrique Reyna No. 140, 25140 Saltillo, México;2. Resirene S.A. de C.V. Km. 15.5 Carretera Federal Puebla‐Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, México;3. Institut Charles Gerhardt, UMR 5253 CNRS/UM2/ENSCM/UM1, Ingénierie et Architectures Macromoléculaires, Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier, 8 rue de l'Ecole Normale, 34296 Montpellier Cedex 5, France |
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Abstract: | S‐allyl‐4‐methyldithiobenzoate was synthesized and used as a chain transfer agent for the RAFT polymerization of butyl acrylate to produce a functionalized acrylic rubber. A solution of 8 wt% of this functionalized rubber was prepared in styrene and polymerized to generate a material called acrylic rubber‐modified polystyrene (AMP) constituted by well‐dispersed particles of poly(butyl acrylate)‐block‐poly(styrene) into a polystyrene matrix. Impact strength of injection‐molded samples of AMP was measured and compared with the general purpose polystyrene (GPPS) and the high impact polystyrene (HIPS). AMP itself showed an impact strength value similar to GPPS; however, when AMP was blended with conventional HIPS, the resulting material exhibited an improvement of 76–91% as compared to HIPS by itself, without affecting negatively tensile properties. Transmission electron microscopy analysis revealed both kinds of dispersed phases, i.e. the typical salami particles of polybutadiene coming from HIPS (size: 0.5–2 µ) and small particles from poly(butyl acrylate)‐block‐poly(styrene) (size: ~50 nm). We clearly showed that such a bimodality of the particle size distribution caused the positive synergistic effect on impact strength. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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Keywords: | RAFT polymerization block copolymers high impact polystyrene |
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