Structural characteristics of some high density polyethylene/EPDM blends

Blends of ethylene propylene diene terpolymer rubber (EPDM) with high density polyethylenewere obtained by melt mixing. Mechanical properties of the composites, tensilestrength, hardness, resilience, elongation at break, 100% modulus and tear strength weredetermined. Differential scanning calorimetry and wide angle x-ray diffraction wereemployed to study melting behavior and crystalline structure. The surface properties wereanalyzed using contact angle determinations. Also, compatibilization with PE-g-MA ordynamical vulcanization using phenolic resins was applied to obtain improved mechanicalproperties. It was found that the crystalline structure of HDPE was not changed duringblending. The vulcanized composite presents a lower degree of crystallinity. Elongation atbreak and hardness were significantly increased for composites containing compatibilizingagent. The morphology of EPDM composites was studied by atomic force microscopy.