Twin screw microcompounder

Three different extruders were evaluated in this work. One of the extruders was the Haake twin screw (30.5 mm diameter and a length diameter ratio of 1 10) that was employed in much of the above nylon 6 organomontmorillonite exfoliation studies. The other two were a Werner and Pfleiderer ZSK twin-screw extruder with a diameter of 25 mm and a length diameter ratio of 48 1 and a microcompounder manufactured by DSM (this is a batch compounder (3 g sample sizes) with a vertical barrel that is fitted with two conical screws that vary in diameter from 0.43 to 1 cm and are 10.75 cm in length). 

PEN resin in pellets form (X-10 PEN homopolymer, intrinsic viscosity 0.79 ml/g) was obtained from Excell LLC and dried at 150°C for more than 24 hrs. It was mixed with 0, 1, 3 and 5 wt% of graphite (surface enhanced flake graphite, Asbury Carbons) and transferred into recirculating conical twin screw extruder (Microcompounder, DACA Instruments) or 16 mm corotating twin screw extruder (Prism TSE 16TC) controlled... 

Blends were prepared by mixing the components in a vertical twin-screw mixer with reciprocating channel (DACA Microcompounder, DACA). Antioxidant (Irganox 1010, Ciba) was added at 0.2 wt% to the blends to reduce degradation. The blend composition was varied between 10-90 wt% PS. The PS-b-PE loading was 1% by weight. Materials were simultaneously added, mixed at 100 rpm for 10 minutes at 170 °C, and then quenched in LNz. 

---