Industrial Feasibility and Current Trends

Most of the large eompanies active in polymer technology, polymer compounding, and formulation, are moving from classical reaction vessels to processing equipment with respect to polymer chemistry. In this context, extruders are progressively considered as effective continuous reaction vessels. Polymer literature counts about 660 citations on reactive processing over a period of 17 years [11]. Of these, about 90% of the references encountered were patents. 

The screening of the patent literature reveals a very large number of references in the area of reactively compatibilized blends. The PPO/PA6.6/S(E)BS blend is commercialized under Noryl GTX trade name by GE Plastics in this blend combination, maleic anhydride end-capped PPO is used as the reactive intermediate. Another blend which consists of ABS/PA6/(S-AN-MA) was commercialized under the Triax trade name by Monsanto it is most likely that the terpolymer S-AN-MA is used as reactive polymer for the compatibilization. PP/PA/PP-g-MA (Akuloy of DSM) and the supertough PA containing EPDM-g-MA, commercialized under the trade name Zytel ST by DuPont, are also typical examples of commercial reactive blends, where the reaction between maleic anhydride groups and amine end-groups of polyamides is used for compatibilization. 

The design of multiphase polymer blends via reactive blending implies the use of chemical reactions. As melt-extrusion is the most economically effective process for 

The majority of chemical reactions involved in reactive blending results from two functional polymers provided that the functional groups are able to react at the extrusion conditions including melt temperature, shear stress, and bulk state of the reacting polymer mixture. 

---