UHMWPE/HDPE in-reactor blends, prepared by in situ polymerization: synthetic aspects and characterization

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira, A. E.
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Cerrada, M. L., Pérez, Ernesto, Lorenzo, V., Vallés, E., Ressia, J., Cramail, H., Lourenco, J. P., Ribeiro, M. R.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/9038
• topic: Polymer composites; In-reactor blends; UHMWPE

This work covers the synthesis and characterization of in-reactor Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene/ High Density Polyethylene, UHMWPE/HDPE, blends by in situ polymerization in a single reactor, through dual catalyst immobilization. These blends are synthesized combining two different catalysts (one for each targeted molar mass) co-immobilized in mesoporous Santa Barbara Amorphous, SBA-15, particles. First, the ethylene polymerization behavior is investigated, under different polymerization conditions. Then, studies on the thermal, mechanical and rheological characteristics of the produced in-reactor blends are presented and their performance is compared and discussed in a comprehensive way. Moreover, the effect of different filler contents on the properties exhibited by the resulting materials is investigated. Results have shown that these in-reactor UHMWPE/HDPE blends exhibit a complex thermal, mechanical and rheological behavior, which depends mainly on the proportion between the two polymer components and on the amount of SBA-15.