Processing characteristics of nylon 6 by controlling the melt viscosity

Abstract

Melt processing characteristics of nylon 6 (N6) has been investigated by controlling the melt viscosity in melt impregnation process. Calcium stearate (CaST) was introduced as a lubricant for N6 and the melt viscosity of N6 decreased with adding only 1 wt% of CaST. In addition, reactive blending with polycaprolactone (PCL) was carried out by lowering the melt viscosity in N6. It was found that the melt viscosity of N6 could be controlled and further melt viscosity drop could be obtained by applying phenyl phosphite (PP) and diphenyl phosphite (DPP) to enhance the transesterification between N6 and PCL. Our approaches show that the melt viscosity of N6 could be reduced without loss of thermal stability which is the critical problem in high temperature melt impregnation process of N6.