Polyamide 66/poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) compatibilization with styrene–acrylonitrile–glycidyl methacrylate: rheology, morphology, and mechanical properties

Abstract

During the blending process, styrene–acrylonitrile–glycidyl methacrylate (SAG) was grafted through in-situ formation of polyamide 66 (PA66) as a compatibilizer for poly (2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenoxy) (PPO) composites. SAG has an obvious advantage over the PA66/PPO blends in terms of terminal performance in the dynamic rheological analysis. Moreover, the gap between the PA66 and PPO glass-transition temperatures decreases with the SAG content increasing, which indicates improved compatibility. The particle morphology of the PA66/PPO/SAG blends had narrower size distributions and became smaller after adding SAG. In addition, the compatibilization improved the mechanical properties of blends significantly when SAG reached 5 by weight per hundred resins (phr). This is attributed to enhanced interfacial adhesion and a finer dispersion morphology. However, when 7 phr of SAG are added, the exceeded compatibilizer produces a limitation on the improvement of the mechanical properties. Our results indicate that the optimal concentration of the compatibilizer, SAG, is between 3 and 5 phr for PA66/PPO (60/40).