Room temperature and low temperature toughness improvement in SAN/ASA blends by blending with CPE, HNBR, and BR

Styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer (SAN)/acrylonitrile-styrene-acrylate terpolymer (ASA) blends (75/25, wt/wt) was toughened by blending with impact modifiers including chlorinated polyethylene (CPE), hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR), and butadiene rubber (BR) and the impact property was tested at four temperatures (–30, −15, 0, and 25 °C). The combination of CPE and HNBR was imported to toughen the SAN/ASA blends, indicating that CPE and HNBR had similar toughening effect at room temperature but HNBR exhibited a better performance at low temperature. When a little HNBR was substituted by BR, the impact strength improved dramatically with the total content of impact modifiers keeping at 30 phr. After 15 phr CPE, 10 phr HNBR and 5 phr BR were employed into blends together, the impact strength reached to a peak of 14 kJ/m² at −30 °C while the impact strength of the blends individually toughened by 30 phr CPE or 30 phr HNBR was 5 or 12 kJ/m², respectively. The toughening mechanism showed that the low glass-transition temperature (–108 °C) of BR and the compatibilization between BR and matrix accounted for the improvement of toughness. Simultaneously, scanning electron microscopy, dynamic mechanical analysis, flexural and tensile properties, heat distortion temperature, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were measured.