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The polymer materials industry is heavily dependent on the use of petroleum based plastics. This poses a problem, as the world is facing ongoing petroleum supply problems. A need exists for a bio-carbon based polymer material that has the performance and cost of currently used petroleum plastics. However, the overall performance of current bio-based plastics indicate that they must be somehow supplemented to achieve the properties of that of petroleum-based polymers. The low impact strength and thermal stability of poly(lactic acid), PLA are targets for improvement. One option is for development is through blending with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The viability and efficacy of using these two polymers as blending partners is investigated. The PLA used in these studies has unique and interesting crystallization properties. These have been examined and detailed in part 1. The second part of study includes neat polymer properties, miscibility analysis, and large scale process results. This results in an optimized blending ratio on which to go forward with development. The mechanical, thermal, and morphological properties are investigated in these studies. Significance of this research and development is widespread, as the material developed has the potential to reduce the use of petroleum-based carbon in plastics. / The financial support from the 2010 Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA)/University of Guelph -Bioeconomy for Industrial Uses Research Program, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) AUTO21 NCE project and Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), to carry out this research is gratefully acknowledged.

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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Chemical Engineering / Mary E. Rezac / Polyimide membranes have been used extensively in gas separation applications because of their attractive gas transport properties and the ease of processing these materials. Other applications of membranes, such as membrane reactors, which could compete with more traditional packed and slurry bed reactors across a wider range of environments, could benefit from improvements in the thermal and chemical stability of polymeric membranes. This work focuses on blending polyimide and polybenzimidazole polymers to improve the thermal and chemical stability of polyimide membranes while retaining the desirable characteristics of the polyimide. Blended dense films and asymmetric membranes were fabricated and characterized. Dense film properties are useful for studying intrinsic properties of the polymer blends. Transport properties of dense films were characterized from room temperature to 200°C. Properties including miscibility, density, chain packing and thermal stability were investigated. A process for fabricating flat sheet blended integrally skinned asymmetric membranes by phase inversion was developed. The transport properties of membranes were characterized from room temperature to 300°C. A critical characteristic of gas separation membranes is selectivity. Post-treatments including thermal annealing and vapor and liquid surface treatments were investigated to improve the selectivity of blended membranes. Vapor and liquid surface treatments with common, benign solvents including an alkane, an aldehyde and an alcohol resulted in improvements in selectivity.

This thesis set out to find a blend of thermoplastics that had better combustion properties than the current ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) plastic or “Lego TM plastic” used by Utah State University. The current work is in an effort to eliminate toxic propellants from small space applications. High and low density polyethylene plastics were used because they are common plastic waste items. In this way rocket fuel can be made from these items to reduce the waste found in landfills. Three plastics were considered for replacement and as mixture components with the ABS plastic, namely low and high density polyethylene, and high impact polystyrene. These plastics failed to have superior combustion properties when used in rockets designed to achieve 12 pounds or less of thrust compared to the current ABS plastic.

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Le mélange de polymères est une méthode répandue pour élaborer des matériaux polymères. Cependant, la plupart des polymères sont thermodynamiquement immiscibles entre eux, engendrant une séparation de phase des mélanges et une détérioration de leurs propriétés. Afin de palier ces problèmes, la méthode dite compatibilisation réactive est souvent employée. Elle est basée sur la formation in-situ de copolymères à bloc ou greffés par l’intermédiaire de réactions interfaciales entre polymères réactifs. Cette thèse a pour objet de développer un concept dit agent compatibilisant-traceur réactif qui permettra d’utiliser de faibles quantités d’agents compatibilisants réactifs pour évaluer leurs efficacités de compatibilisation directement sur des extrudeuses bi-vis industrielles, d’une part ; et de caractériser la performance du mélange d’une extrudeuse bi-vis en fonction des conditions opératoires et/ou du profil de vis employé. Ses principales contributions se résument ci-après. L’anthracène de 9-méthylaminométhyle (MAMA), une molécule fluorescente, est incorporée dans un copolymère statistique de styrène (St) et d’isocyanate de 3-isopropenyle-?, ?’-diméthylebenzène (TMI), noté PS-TMI, pour former un agent compatibilisant-traceur réactif, noté PS-TMI-MAMA. Ce dernier sert à la fois comme agent compatibilisant réactif grâce aux groupements isocyanate et traceur grâce aux groupements fluorescents. Il est utilisé pour les mélanges à base de polystyrène (PS) et de polyamide 6 (PA6) afin d’évaluer son efficacité de compatibilisation. Les mélanges PS/PA6 sont élaborés dans un mélangeur discontinu et une extrudeuse bi-vis, respectivement. Dans le cas du mélangeur discontinu, la quantité du copolymère greffé formé in-situ, noté PS-g-PA6-MAMA, augmente alors que le diamètre des domaines de la phase dispersée (DDD) diminue considérablement au début du mélange. Lorsque le mélange se poursuit, le nombre de greffons en PA6 du PS-g-PA6-MAMA augmente, engendrant une composition très asymétrique du PS-g-PA6-MAMA qui est thermodynamiquement instable aux interfaces. De ce fait, il peut être arraché des interfaces vers la phase PA6 et peut y former des micelles. Lorsqu’il est arraché des interfaces, il perdra son efficacité de compatibilisation et le DDD augmentera. L’action du mélange a un double effet sur le procédé de compatibilisation réactive. Il promeut la réaction interfaciale entre le PS-TMI-MAMA et le PA6, d’une part ; et aggrave l’arrachage du PS-g-PA6-MAMA de l’interface, d’autre part. L’utilisation de faibles quantités de l’agent compatibilisant-traceur réactif permet de mesurer les évolutions de la teneur en agent compatibilisant-traceur réactif, du DDD et de la teneur en agent compatibilisant-traceur réactif ayant réagi en fonction du temps de séjour dans une extrudeuse bi-vis. Pour une masse molaire donnée, l’efficacité de compatibilisation d’un agent compatibilisant-traceur réactif augmente avec l’augmentation de la teneur en TMI dans une certaine limite. Pour une teneur en TMI donnée, la réaction interfaciale est plus rapide avec la diminution de la masse molaire dans une certaine limite et le DDD devient plus petit en un temps plus court. L’influence du taux de remplissage de la vis est plus significative que celle du temps de séjour. Lorsque le taux de remplissage de la vis augmente, le taux de la réaction interfaciale augmente et le DDD diminue. Lorsque l’angle d’un élément de mélange augmente, les efficacités du mélange distributif et du mélange dispersif augmentent, ce qui se traduit par une augmentation de la quantité du PS-g-PA6-MAMA formée et une diminution du DDD par rapport à la même quantité de PS-g-PA6-MAMA produite. Lorsque la largeur d’un élément de mélange augmente, l’efficacité du mélange distributive augmente alors que celle du mélange dispersif demeure inchangée. La substitution d’éléments de mélange par des éléments inverses améliore l’efficacité du mélange distributif et celle du mélange dispersif / Polymer blending is a common method to prepare high-performance polymer materials. However, most polymer pairs are thermodynamically immiscible, leading to phase separation and deterioration in material properties. To overcome such problems, the most common method is reactive compatibilization which is based on the in-situ formation of a graft or block copolymer by interfacial reaction between reactive polymers. This thesis aims at developing a concept of reactive compatibilizer-tracer which will allow using small amounts of reactive compatibilizers to evaluate their compatibilizing efficiency in industrial scale twin screw extruders, on the one hand; and to characterize the mixing performance of a twin screw extruder as a function of process conditions and/or screw profile. Its main contributions are summarized below. 9-(methylaminomethyl) anthracene (MAMA), a fluorescent molecule, is incorporated into a random copolymer of styrene (St) and 3-isopropenyl-?, ?’-dimethylbenzene isocyanate (TMI), denoted as PS-TMI, to form a reactive compatibilizer-tracer, denoted as PS- TMI-MAMA. The latter serves both as a reactive compatibilizer due to its isocyanate moieties and a tracer due to its fluorescent moieites. It is used for polystyrene (PS)/polyamide 6 (PA6) blends to evaluate its compatibilizing efficiency. Compatibilized PS/PA6 blends are processed in a batch mixer and in a twin screw extruder, respectively. In the case of the batch mixer, the amount of the in-situ formed graft copolymer denoted as PS-g-PA6-MAMA increases and the dispersed phase domain diameter (DDD) decreases drastically in the initial period of mixing. As the mixing further proceeds, the number of PA6 grafts of the PS-g-PA6-MAMA increases, resulting in a highly asymmetrical composition of the PS-g-PA6-MAMA which causes thermodynamic instablility at the interface. As a result, it could be pulled out of the interface to the PA6 phase and form micelles. Once it is pulled out of the interface, it will lose its compatibilizing efficiency and the dispersed phase domain diameter increases sharply. Mixing has a dual effect on the reactive compatibilization process. On the one hand, it promotes the interfacial reaction between the PS-TMI-MAMA and PA6. On the other hand, it aggravates the pull out of the resulting PS-g-PA6-MAMA from the interface. The use of small amounts of the reactive compatibilizer-tracer together with transient experiments for RTD allows assessing the evolutions of the reactive compatibilizer-tracer content (CC), the dispersed phase domain diameter (DDD), and the reacted reactive compatibilizer-tracer content (RCC) as a function of residence time in a twin-screw extruder. Based on the above results, the emulsification curve (DDD vs. CC), the RCC vs. CC curve and effective emulsification curve (DDD vs. RCC) are obtained. When the molar mass of the reactive compatibilizer-tracer is fixed, its compatibilizing efficiency increases with increasing TMI content within an appropriate range. When its TMI content is fixed, the interfacial reaction goes faster as the molar mass of the reactive compatibilizer-tracer decreases within a certain range, and the DDD becomes smaller in a shorter time. The effect of degree of fill fixed by the throughput Q/screw speed N ratio is more dominant than that of residence time. As the degree of fill increases, the interfacial reaction increases and the DDD decreases. As the angle of adjacent the kneading block increases, its distributive and dispersive mixing efficiencies increase, resulting in an increase in interfacial area generation and a decrease in DDD on the basis of the same amount of PS-g-PA6-MAMA. On the other hand, as the width of the kneading block increases, the distributive mixing efficiency increases and the dispersive mixing efficiency remains unchanged. Substitution of kneading blocks by reverse ones increase both the distributive and dispersive mixing efficiencies

Teoretická část této diplomové práce popisuje vlastnosti a možnosti modifikace poly(3-hydroxybutyrátu) (PHB) a amorfní poly(mléčné kyseliny) (PLA) a jejich směsí. V experimentální části je studována reaktivita Joncrylu, Raschigu a fosfitových činidel trifenylfosfitu, tris(nonylfenyl) fosfitu a difenylisodecylfosfitu s čistým PLA a PHB. Raschig, oligomerní aditivum na bázi polykarbodiimidu, prokázal v množství 2hm. % zvýšení viskozity taveniny obou polymerů, a proto byl použit k přípravě směsí o pěti hmotnostních poměrech PHB/(PHB+PLA). Vzorky s Raschigem a odpovídajícími nereaktivními vzorky byly studovány pomocí reologie, gelové permeační chromatografie a modulované diferenční kompenzační kalorimetrie. Výsledky naznačily reakce Raschigu v PHB/PLA směsích vedoucí k rozvětveným strukturám. Rychlost reakce však není nedostatečná ke kompenzaci poklesu viskozity v důsledku degradace při zpracování. Následně zůstává nezreagované množství Raschigu v matrici. Na základě těchto zjištění se dospělo k závěru, že Raschig se chová spíše jako relativně účinný stabilizátor reologických vlastností, než jako činidlo pro záměrnou modifikaci struktury směsí PHB/PLA. Za účelem studia mechanických vlastností těchto směsí byly ve dvoušnekovém extrudéru připraveny vzorky plastifikovány acetyltributylcitrátem.

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