Physical and Mechanical Behaviour of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes/PP-EDPM Nanocomposites

The effects of the incorporation of singlewalled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) on the physical and mechanical properties of thermoplastic elastomers based on blends of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) and ethylene–propylene– diene rubber (EPDM) are described. A marked decrease of the half-time of PP–EPDM crystallization and a sensible increase of the overall crystallization rate were observed in the presence of SWNTs. These results confirmed the expected nucleant effect of nanotubes on the crystallization of polypropylene. This effect was not linearly dependent on the SWNTs’ content, showing a saturation of the nucleant effect at high nanotube concentrations. Dynamic mechanical analysis results showed a significant and controversial change of the mechanical behavior of the PP–EPDM/ SWNT composites depending on the nanotube content. In particular, the storage modulus increased at the lowest incorporation of SWNTs, whereas a further increase of nanotubes led to a reduction of the storage modulus with respect to the pristine polymer matrix. Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy were successfully applied to demonstrate that in the composite films, the changes in the crystallization kinetics and mechanical properties could be explained in terms of the changes of the distance between nanotubes in bundles after a different intercalation of the polymer matrix.