MODIFICATION OF POLYPROPYLENE BY ADDING LONG

JORGE A. GUAPACHA; LIDIA M. QUINZANI; MARCELO D. FAILLA; ENRIQUE M. VALLÉS

Congreso; 7th MoDeSt Conference (MoDeSt 2012); 2012

Polypropylene (PP) has become one of the most widelyused commercial polyolefins. It has many excellent properties, such as lowdensity, high melting temperature and good chemical resistance. Howevercommercial PP is a highly linear polymer. This limits its use inapplications such as thermoforming, foaming and blow molding because itlacks of melt strength and good extensional properties. One of the mosteffective strategies to improve elongational properties is to modify thestructure of the linear polymer molecules by incorporating long branches.In this work long chain branched PP was prepared by reaction in themolten state in the presence different concentrations of glycerol. Themodified PPs exhibit improved rheological properties and higher meltstrength.