Polymer Engineering and Science, Vol.42, No.12, 2306-2316, 2002
Rheological behavior of brominated isobutylene-co-paramethylstyrene: Effect of fillers, oil and blending with EPDM
The melt flow properties of unfilled and filled brominated isobutylene-co-para-methylstyrene (BIMS) were measured by means of a capillary viscometer at three different temperatures (90degreesC, 110degreesC and 130degreesC) and four different shear rates (61, 122, 245 and 306 s(-1)). The effect of addition of EPDM rubber on melt flow properties of unfilled BIMS was also studied. Evaluation of the processability was done by measuring the extrudate roughness (ER) of the extrudates obtained from the MPT. The viscosity of the systems decreased with the shear rate, indicating their pseudoplastic or shear thinning nature. As expected, the viscosity of BIMS increased with the addition of fillers and decreased with the addition of oil. For the neat systems, viscosity increased with the addition of EPDM, and the blends showed a positive deviation, indicating interdiffusion of the polymer chains across the phase boundaries. The activation energy of the filled systems at constant filler loading increased with increasing filler surface area (N330 > N550 > N774, each at 30 phr loading), and filler loading (50 > 30 > 10 phr, for N330) and decreased with the addition of oil (2.5 > 5.0 > 7.5 phr, for system containing 30 phr of N330). The silica filled system showed a higher activation energy and ER than the carbon black-filled systems. With addition of N330 and N550 carbon blacks to BIMS, the extrudate roughness (ER) decreased, whereas it increased with the addition of N774 carbon black. With an increase in filler loading, ER initially increased and then decreased as compared to the neat system. For the filled systems, ER initially decreased up to 5 phr of oil, beyond which it increased.