Atactic polypropyle. From industrial by-product to high added value material for advanced applications through chemical modification processes

Abstract

This work is related to the conversion of an industrial by product (or waste) coming from polymerization reactors, as the atactic polypropylene is considered, into materials to be used as interfacial modifiers in heterogeneous materials based on polymers. In fact, this work concerns with the obtain of interfacial modifiers by chemical modification of the polymer by grafting of polar monomers either by one step processes to graft succinic anhydride (SA) or p-phenylen-bis-maleamic acid (pPBM) onto the polymer backbone, or by a two step process to yield succinil-fluoresceine grafted atactic polymers from the modified with SA. The comparison of these chemical processes both in solution and in the melt has allow to us to establish a reaction mechanism, and as a consequence, to obtain interfacial agents with very different functionalities and molecular architectures providing the researcher the ability to design taylor-made advanced materials such as micro- and nano-structured blends, alloys and composites, becoming the interfacial modifiers as the key for their advanced ultimate properties.