Effect of Peroxides Mixtures on the Molecular Structure of Ethylene-1-Octene Copolymer in Reactive Blending

Various methods have been examined to achieve high performance polymers, among them, chain branching method has shown excellent potential for production of polymers suitable for new applications. This work aims at investigating the effects of different mixtures of peroxides on the molecular structure of ethylene-1-octene copolymer during reactive blending. The torque of mixing has been applied as an indicative of a change in the molecular structure. Moreover, the gel content test is used to investigate the partial crosslinking of the samples. In this research, the response surface method (RSM) according to a box Behnken statistical design was applied to investigate the effect of three peroxides mixtures with different half-life times and radical stability on the molecular structure. The method suggests the optimized formulation for maximum branching with little gel content.