Abstract:
This engineering project was aimed to study the thermal and mechanical properties of epoxidized natural rubber (ENR)/poly(propylene terepthalate-co-lactic acid) (PPT-co-PLA) blend. Tin(II)octoate was used as the catalyst in this mechanical blending. The ratios of ENR:PPT-co-PLA 4:1, 2:1 and 1:1 by weight were varied in order to study the glass transition temperature (Tg), thermal degradation, break energy and tensile strength. Thermal property by DSC technique showed the partial compatibility between ENR and PPT-co-PLA. It was found that the Tgs of the polymer blends were in the range of 63-68°C. For TGA, decomposed temperature of polymer blends decreased as an increase in PPT-co-PLA composition. DTGA result indicated that ENR:PPT-co-PLA 2:1 was the highest crosslink efficiency sample which may, resulted in the highest break energyMoreover, the microscopic analysis at 10x, 40x and 100x represented the best dispersion of copolymer in ENR at the ratio of 2:1.