Preparation of polyolefin based thermoplastic elastomers
AssigneeOptatech Corporation
InventorsTorvald Vestberg, Ismo Lehtiniemi, Tarja Mäkelä
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The invention relates to a method for manufacturing a sealable and peelable polymer blend, in which method polystyrene and an ethylene copolymer are first melt blended and the obtained blend is further mixed with the same ethylene copolymer either by melt blending or dry blending so that the final polymer blend contains 1-50% by weight polystyrene and 99-50% by weight ethylene copolymer. Ethylene copolymer is preferably ethylene/methyl(meth)acrylate, ethylene/ethyl(meth)acrylate, ethylene/butyl(meth)acrylate or ethylene/vinylacetate copolymer.
Claims15
A thermoplastic elastomer produced by the process which comprises:
- a) combining polyolefin particles, an acrylate monomer and a free radical polymerization initiator;
- and
- b) heating the resultant mixture to impregnate and polymerize said acrylate in said polyolefin particles, and to crosslink said acrylate with diacrylate to produce a polyolefin-polyacrylate blend, wherein crosslinked polyacrylate comprises more than 50% and forms a dispersed phase in a continuous phase of said polyolefin after melt blending.
A thermoplastic elastomer produced by the process which comprises:
- a) combining polyolefin particles, an acrylate monomer and a free radical polymerization initiator;
- and
- b) heating the resultant mixture to impregnate and polymerize said acrylate in said polyolefin particles, and to crosslink said acrylate with diacrylate to produce a polyolefin-polyacrylate blend, wherein the crosslinked polyacrylate comprises more than 50% and forms a dispersed phase in a continuous phase of said polyolefin after melt blending, wherein said polyolefin is polypropylene or polypropylene containing units derived from comonomers, polyethylene or polyethylene containing units derived from comonomers, and said acrylate monomers are alkyl acrylates or alkyl methacrylates with 4 or more carbon atoms in the alkyl chain.
A thermoplastic elastomer comprising a polyolefin as a continuous phase in minority and polyacrylate as a soft dispersed phase in majority, wherein said polyacrylate phase is crosslinked and the two phases do not undergo a phase transition during melting.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.