The effect of compatibilization on rheological and mechanical properties of HIPS/HDPE blends

HIPS is one of the modified polymers that the toughness is improved by rubber modification, but when exposed to chemical ,doesn’t show high resistance and cracking over time .So one of theways to improve the properties of high impact polystyrene (HIPS) is the blending with polyolefin, especially polyethylene. As thesepolymers are incompatible, many researchers have studied the effect of various types and combination of different compatibilizerson these blends [1-4]. Perez et al. [1] showed that the addition of SEBS and SBS copolymers to HDPE/HIPS blends, resulting inenhancement of mechanical properties. Also the melting temperatures of compatibilized blends were reduced with increasing the amounts of compatibilizer. FurthermoreChirawithayaboon et al. [2] showed that the mechanical properties of HDPE/HIPS blends increase with increasing the SEBS contents.Gao et al. [3]used a Lewis acid catalyst, aluminum chloride (AlCl3), to produce LLDPE-g-HIPS copolymers and used it as acompatibilizer for HIPS/LLDPE blends. Pospisilet et al. [4] showed that the cooperative compatibilising system has a synergistic effect only in blends containing recycled or pre-aged LDPE and this system is not operative in the presence of virgin LDPE. In this study we investigatethe effect of SBS as a compatibilizer for the HDPE/HIPS blends to improve the mechanical properties of this blend.