• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1125-1129
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• 2008

Polypropylene (PP)/corn starch master batch(starch-MB) blends with different PP compositions of 90, 80, 70, and 60 wt% were prepared by melt compounding at $200^{\circ}C$, using lab scale Brabender mixer. The chemical structures, thermal properties and non-isothermal crystallization behavior of the PP/starch-MB blends were investigated by FT-infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA). The fabrication of the PP/starch-MB blend was confirmed by the existence of hydroxy group in FT-IR spectrum. There was no district change in melting temperature and melting enthalpy, and TGA curve indicates a decrease in degradation temperature with starch-MB content. The non-isothermal crystallization process was analyzed using by Avrami equation. The Avrami exponents were in the range of 2.71-3.97 for PP and 1.48-1.99 for PP/starch-MB blonds. The activation energies calculated by Kissinger method were 233 kJ/mol for PP, 484 kJ/mol for PP90, 541 kJ/mol for PP80, 553 kJ/mol for PP70, and 422 kJ/mol for PP60.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.557-561
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• 2007

Polypropylene (PP)/corn starch master batch (starch-MB) blends with different PP compositions of 40, 50, 60, and 80 wt% were prepared by melt compounding at $200^{\circ}C$, using lab scale Brabender mixer. The chemical structures and thermal properties of the PP/starch-MB blends were investigated by FT-IR, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA). The chemical structure was confirmed by the existence of hydroxy group. There was no district change in melting temperature and melting enthalpy, and TGA curve indicated a decrease in degradation temperature with starch-MB content. The porosity change of blend was measured by scanning electron microscope (SEM), the degree of porosity on the blend surface increased with the starch-MB content. The rheological properties indicated an increase in complex viscosity, shear thinning tendency and elasticity with the starch-MB concentration. These effects were confirmed by an oscillatory viscometer at $200^{\circ}C$. From these results, it is found that 40 wt% is the optimum starch-MB concentration. The fiber was fabricated from PP60/MB40 with 40 wt% starch-MB and the porosity and tensile properties were investigated.