Chemical modification of polybutene-1 resins through reactive processing

Abstract

A commodity polybutene-1 (PB-1) resin has been chemically modified through reactive processing. Samples produced by using various amounts of peroxide have been analyzed in terms of their molecular and rheological properties. Molecular weight distributions (MWD) as determined by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) indicate that polydispersity (PDI) remains constant but weight-average molecular weight (Mw) decreases with increasing peroxide amount. Linear viscoelastic measurements indicate that the modified samples are thermo-rheologically simple, zero-shear viscosity decreases with increasing peroxide concentration and flow activation energy remains constant.