Fracture studies of poly(propylene)/elastomer blend with β-form nucleating agent

Poly(propylene)/elastomer blends with β-form nucleating agent (β-NA) aryl amides compound (TMB-5) were prepared. The effects of β-NA on crystallization, melting behaviors and elastomer morphologies of PP/elastomer blends were studied through polarization optical microscope (POM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and scanning electronic microscope (SEM). The fracture behaviors, including notched Izod impact fracture and single-edge notched tensile (SENT) fracture, were comparatively studied to establish the role of NA in improving the fracture toughness of PP/elastomer blends. Our results showed that the presence of β-NA leads to determinable β-PP formation in the blends, and as a consequence the fracture toughness of the blend is improved dramatically. Compared with notched Izod impact testing, which can efficiently characterize the fracture toughness of the blends only at lower elastomer content, SENT testing provides more detail of fracture behavior in all the compositions. Furthermore, SENT test shows that the significant improvement in fracture toughness of PP/elastomer/β-NA is contributed to the simultaneous enhancement of crack initiation energy and crack propagation energy, but largely dominated by crack propagation stage.