Reactive processing of ethylene-vinyl acetate rubber/polyamide blends via a dynamic transesterification reaction

Dynamic vulcanization process of ethylene-vinyl acetate rubber (EVM) and ternary polyamide copolymer (tPA) blends in the presence of tetraethyloxysilane (TEOS) was investigated. The morphology, crosslink density and mechanical properties of the resultant EVM/tPA thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) were characterized. The dynamically crosslinked EVM phase was distributed homogeneously in the continuous tPA phase for the EVM/tPA (70/30) TPE, and the phase size of EVM decreased further as the TEOS content increased. The crosslink density reached 3.17 × 10⁻⁵ mol cm⁻³, and the tensile strength and the elongation at break were up to 10.6 MPa and 296 %, respectively, when the TEOS content was increased to 8 phr, and the heat oil resistance was accordingly enhanced. As compared to dicumyl peroxide-initiated crosslinking reaction of EVM, the crosslinking reaction of EVM through the transesterification reaction between EVM and TEOS presented lower crosslinking rate constant and activation energy, indicating that the transesterification reaction is more suitable for high temperature dynamic vulcanization processing. The optimized dynamic vulcanization process of EVM/tPA TPEs is useful for developing high-performance TPEs for automotive applications.