Compatibilization of a polyethylene/polyamide 6 blend nanocomposite

Polymer blends of incompatible components need to be compatibilized to give rise to a blend with good properties. At the same way, polymer/clay nanocomposites show the same problem because of different chemical nature of the polymer matrix and of the clay. Compatibilization is then necessary if an incompatible polymer blend is filled with an organomodified clay. In this work a polyethylene/polyamide 6 blend filled with an organomodified clay has been compatibilized with a maleic anyhidride grafted SEBS (styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene) copolymer and a glicidylmethacrylate-ethylene copolymer. The results show that compatibilization improves the mechanical properties in terms of elongation at break; furthermore, an unexpected effect has been found, since going from the isotropic to the anisotropic material, a fragile-ductile transition occurs, with a significant increase of the elongation values.