Abstract
A method of simultaneous reinforcing and toughening of polypropylene (PP) was reported. Dynamic cure of the epoxy resin was successfully applied in the PP/maleic anhydride-grafted ethylene-octene copolymer (MAH-g-POE) blends, and the obtained blends named as dynamically cured PP/MAH-g-POE/epoxy blends. The smaller size of the epoxy particle in the PP/MAH-g-POE/epoxy blends shows that MAH-g-POE was also used as a compatibilizer. The structure of the dynamically cured PP/MAH-g-POE/epoxy blends embedded the epoxy particles by the MAH-g-POE. The stiffness and toughness of dynamically cured PP/MAH-g-POE/epoxy blends were in good balance. The cured epoxy particles as organic filler increased the stiffness of the PP/MAH-g-POE blends, and the improvement in the toughness was attributed to the embedded structure in the blends. The tensile strength and flexural modulus of the blends increased with increasing the epoxy resin content, and the impact strength reaches a maximum of 378 J/m at the epoxy resin content of 10 wt.%. Thermogravimetric analysis results showed that the incorporation of MAH-g-POE into the PP could reduce the thermal stability of PP, but the addition of epoxy resin could improve the thermal stability of PP, the dynamically cured PP/MAH-g-POE/epoxy blends had good thermal stability when compared to PP.