Evaluation of rheological and electrical breakdown behaviors of multi-phase polyolefin blends

Mixing two components in blend systems is an excellent way for developing new materials with improved properties. It is important to understand the thermodynamic characteristics of a composition and microstructure evolution of immiscible polymer blends, which are some of the major factors to control the final properties. The metallocene polyolefins from single site constrained geometry catalysts optimize polymer chain architecture to generate highly uniform polymer molecules with specifically targeted properties. In this paper, the micro-phase structures of polypropylene-based thermoplastic olefins with two types of soft, metallocene polyolefin elastomers were investigated to correlate their rheological and electrical breakdown behavior, which can be utilized to tailor the material performance for wire and cable applications.