Polypropylene-Clay Nanocomposites for Foaming

JULIE MERCHAN SANDOVAL; JORGE GUAPACHA; TOBIAS STANDAU; VOLKER ALTSTÄDT; MARCELO D. FAILLA; LIDIA M. QUINZANI

Simposio; SLAP 2018; 2018

Nowadays, there is an especial interest in polyolefin foams production. The high softening temperature of PP makes it a good candidate for this kind of applications1. However, the linear molecular structure of isotactic PPs yields a low melt strength that makes the material practically unsuitable for foaming2. The aim of this work is to produce foamable nanocomposites (NC) by mixing an organophilic montmorillonite (o-MMT) with a high melt strength PP. This polymer was obtained by incorporating long chain branches in the molecular structure of an isotactic PP by reactive processing.