Highly toughened PA6 using residue of plasticized PVB film via two-step reactive melt blending

For sustainable development and environmental protection, residue of plasticized poly(vinyl butyral) film (r-PVB) was reactive mixed with maleated poly(ethylene-1-octene) (POE-g-MA) to obtain masterbatch in a torque rheometer, which was then melt extruded with polyamide 6 (PA6). The existence of POE-g-MA could efficiently modulate the phase morphology and performance of incompatible PA6/r-PVB blends due to its reactivity with PA6 and r-PVB. Moreover, increasing the POE-g-MA content could significantly enhance the interfacial adhesion among the components and was a favor to the formation of "multicore" structure (POE-g-MA encapsulated by r-PVB) in the ternary blends, which were two key issues to obtain high impact toughness. In particular, the maximum impact strength of the obtained super-toughened PA6 blends was about 137.5 kJ/m2, 24 times higher than that of neat PA6. The appearance of massive shear yielding strips in matrix and large deformation of the dispersed phase were the main source of energy dissipation under the impact loading. This work provides a feasible, low-cost but very effective strategy to fabricate super-toughened PA materials.