Effects of Acid Value and Volume Fraction of Maleic Anhydridemodified Polypropylene on Mechanical Properties for Polypropylene-based Composites

Abstract

Polypropylene（PP）is generally used as a mixture with fillers to improve its mechanical properties. The quality of the adhesion at the interface between PP and filler is crucial to this end. Thus, a third component is mixed into the composite to improve the interfacial adhesion. We here examine an effect of maleic anhydride grafted PP （PP-g-MA） on mechanical properties of PP composites filled with silica（SiO2）or alumina（Al2O3） particles. Although the tensile stress at yield for the SiO2 composites slightly increased with a concentration of maleic anhydride in the system（CMA），that for the Al2O3 ones remarkably increased with CMA and reached a plateau value. We successfully demonstrate that the interfacial adsorbed layer of PP-g-MA was well evolved onto the Al2O3 filler, resulting in the improvements of the mechanical properties of the PP composites.