Mechanism of Unexpected Viscosity Decrease of Nylon 6 Melts by Low-T-g Inorganic Tin Fluorophosphate Glass During Processing

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2011

Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Abstract

We report unprecedented non-Einstein-like viscosity decrease of polymer melts by special low glass transition, T-g, inorganic tin fluorophosphate glass (Pglass) that is remarkably counter to widely accepted dispersions, suspensions, and composites theories. The well dispersed low-T-g Pglass dramatically decrease the polymer melt viscosity while increasing its Young's modulus in the solid state at low loading (<2%) however decreasing with high loading (> 2%), making the hybrid Pglass/polymer solid material stronger yet easier to process in the liquid state. Disruption of the Nylon 6 melt dynamics, strong physicochemical interactions, and submicrometer nanophase separation (proved by rheometry, FTIR, DSC, SEM, NMR and XRD) are thought to be responsible for this experimental fact. This finding should beneficially impact our abilityto prepare lower viscosity, very highly filled Nylon 6 melts from already existing materials and polymer processing methods such as injection molding and extrusion, making the simple strategy potentially widely applicable in a number of applications such as thinner barrier resistant thin films, composites, and membranes for heterogeneous catalysis.

Publication Title

Applied Rheology

Volume

21

Issue

4

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