Improving the Softness of BOPP Films： From Laboratory Investigation to Industrial Processing

Young＇s modulus of biaxially oriented polypropylene （BOPP） films prepared with homemade film stretcher was investigated, which can be used to indicate the softness of films. It was found that the modulus of films was decreased by about 69% as the content of polyethylene （PE） added into polypropylene （PP） reached 30%. Also, increasing draw temperature can induce lower stress level during stretching, which may lead to the formation of crystals with low orientation level and thus decreased modulus of films. Based on laboratory study, BOPP films produced on commercial line were studied by differential scanning calorimetry （DSC）, wide and small-angle X-ray scattering （WAXS, SAXS） with varying contents of PE. SAXS results show that the crystals are oriented in both machine direction （MD） and transverse direction （TD）, and the crystals are more oriented in TD than MD according to the WAXS results for all films. Also, the orientation parameter of crystal along TD increases from 0.68 to 0.83 as the contents of PE increase from 0% to 25%. Meanwhile, the modulus of films in MD declines with increase of PE contents generally, improving the film softness. Orientation of crystals is thus an effective structure parameter to adjust the film softness. The relationship of processing-structure-property is also established.

A Universal Equipment for Biaxial Stretching of Polymer Films

A biaxial stretching equipment was designed and constructed to enable fundamental studies of the relationship between film processing conditions and structures of oriented film products. With programmable drive motors and scissorlike mechanism, all stretching modes, including uniaxial stretching with constant and free width, simultaneous and sequential biaxial stretching, can be applied to a square-shaped sheet. Parameters related to film stretching manufacturing, such as temperature, draw ratio and stretching speed can be set independently to meet the requirement of different polymers. The force information during stretching is recorded by two miniature tension sensors in two directions independently, which can monitor the mechanical stimulus and stress response. Using this equipment, experiments are conducted to investigate the influence of stretching parameters on the structure of polypropylene films, which provides an effective method to tailor the processing conditions to obtain the films with desired properties.

Structural Evolution of LLDPE-LMW/HMW Blend during Uniaxial Deformation as Revealed by In Situ Synchrotron Radiation X-ray Scattering

The structural evolutions of LLDPE-LMW/HMW blend during uniaxial deformation at temperatures of 80 and 120 ℃ were investigated by the in situ synchrotron radiation small-and wide-angle X-ray scattering(SR-SAXS/WAXS). The magic sandwich echo(MSE) sequence was used to detect a virtually dead-time-free induction decay(FID) for solid-state NMR analysis. The thermal property of the blend was first checked by DSC,and the temperature dependence of the overall crystallinity was obtained by MSE-FID. The onset melting temperature is determined to be 116 ℃(DSC), and the enhanced π-flip motions in the crystalline domains are clearly observed at T>60 ℃ by MSE-FID. For deformation at 80 ℃, the lamellae become staggered in the strain-softening region as shown by the four-point SAXS pattern, whereas further deformation leads to the melting-recrystallization in the strain-hardening region. For deformation at 120 ℃, the six-point SR-SAXS signal appears just after the four-point SR-SAXS signal, which indicates the formation of new lamellae along deformation direction. In addition, no phase transition occurs in the whole deformation process at both temperatures. Current work shows the detailed temperature dependence microstructural evolution of LLDPELMW/HMW blend. This is expected to provide more structural information for correlating microscopic structure with macroscopic mechanical performance.