Effect of processing conditions on compatibility of nylon 6/polystyrene blend

Abstract

Abstract The morphology of nylon 6 and polystyrene (PS) blend with styrene‐maleic anhydride copolymer (SMA) as a compatibilizing agent was studied. The long‐time mixing of blends exhibited slight decrease in storage modulus and larger domain size. This may be caused by imidization between amine end‐group of nylon 6, and SMA produce the water, which hydrolyzes an amide group of nylon 6 and results in the decrease of viscosity. As the morphology change in blend influence on physical properties, it is found that modification of nylon 6 by SMA has a better morphology and good physical properties with shorter mixing time. However, the morphology investigation in nylon 6/PS blends reveals that the effect of mixing time was negligibly small. Addition of small amount of SMA into nylon 6/PS blend has proved to give improvement in physical properties. This behavior is based on the concentration of water derived from imidization. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 1–7, 2006