Pranee Nuinu. Improvement of impact strength, thermal and UV stabilities of acrylic sheets by addition of poly(styrene-co-methyl methacrylate)-g-EPDM rubber. Master's Degree(Petrochemistry and Polymer Science). Chulalongkorn University. Center of Academic Resources. : Chulalongkorn University, 2010.
Improvement of impact strength, thermal and UV stabilities of acrylic sheets by addition of poly(styrene-co-methyl methacrylate)-g-EPDM rubber
Abstract:
This research studied the mechanical properties including thermal and UV stability of the modified acrylic sheet containing graft copolymer of poly(methyl methacrylate-co-styrene) on EPDM (GEPDM) synthesized via solution polymerization. The modified acrylic sheet (methyl methacrylate/styrene = 80/20 wt%) was prepared by bulk polymerization using benzoyl peroxide and azo-compounds as initiators. The parameter for controlling the level of graft copolymerization was reaction time. It was found that the 16 h of reaction time gave the maximum %grafting efficiency as 88.1%. Then, the mechanical properties and their stability of the modified acrylic sheets before and after thermal and UV aging were reported as functions of %GE and GEPDM content. The impact and flexural strength of the modified acrylic sheets increased with increasing GEPDM content. The maximum impact strength and flexural strength of the modified acrylic sheet were 52.08 KJ/m2 and 96.75 MPa, respectively when GEPDM was applied as 2 wt%. The tensile strength and elongation at break of the modified acrylic sheet decreased with increasing GEPDM content. It reached to the maximum values at 73.32 MPa and 5.71% when the modified acrylic sheet contained GEPDM content at 2 and 1 wt%, respectively. The mechanical properties retention of the modified acrylic sheets after thermal and UV aging was better than that of ones containing 1 wt% of EPDM. From the kinetic data of the thermal degradation, the activation energy of the acrylic sheets containing GEPDM (210.7 kJ/mol) was higher than that of ones without GEPDM content (183.4 kJ/mol). Moreover, the addition of GEPDM increased the opacity of the acrylic sheet resulting to inhibit the UV penetration. This could increase the UV resistance of the modified acrylic sheet. These experimental results implied that GEPDM could act as the mechanical properties improver including thermal and UV stabilizer for the acrylic sheets.