Antistatic performance and morphological observation of ternary blends of poly(ethylene terephthalate), poly(ether esteramide), and Na-neutralized poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid) copolymers

Abstract Blends of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and poly(ether esteramide) (PEEA), which is known as an ion conductive polymer, were prepared by melt mixing using a twin screw extruder. Antistatic performance of the molded plaques of the binary blends was investigated and the effects of adding sodium ionomer, Na-neutralized poly(ethylene- co -methacrylic acid) (E/MAA) Copolymers, in comparison with NaI, were also investigated. We found Na-neutralized E/MAA significantly improved static dissipation performance when blended with above PET/PEEA system whereas NaI was only effective when PEEA amount was larger than 25 wt%. Morphological study of these ternary blends system was conducted by using TEM and it was observed that PEEA domain formed platelet structure in PET matrix when PEEA content was 30%. The domain shape changed from sphere particle to platelet structure via string shape with the increase of PEEA content. And the thickness of the PEEA layers was confirmed as thin as 10 nm. Specific interaction between PEEA and Na-neutralized E/MAA was found by TEM. The Na-neutralized E/MAA domain was encapsulated by PEEA, which could increase the surface area of PEEA in PET matrix. This encapsulation effect explains the unexpected synergy for the static dissipation performance on addition of Na-neutralized E/MAA to PET/PEEA blends.