Morphology, dynamic mechanical, and electrical properties of bio‐based poly(trimethylene terephthalate) blends, part 1: Poly(trimethylene terephthalate)/poly(ether esteramide)/polyethylene glycol 400 bis(2‐ethylhexanoate) blends

Bio-based PTT and PTT blends with PEEA of two different ion contents (275 ppm Na and 3515 ppm Na) and PEG 400 bis (2-ethylhexanoate) were prepared by melt processing. The blends were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic mechanical analysis, transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Electro-static performance was also investigated for those PTT blends since PEEA is known as an ion conductive polymer. Here we confirmed that PEG 400 bis (2-ethylhexanoate) improves the static decay performance of PTT/PEEA blends. DMA strongly suggests that PEG 400 bis (2-ethylhexanoate) and PEEA are miscible pairs, and PEG 400 bis (2-ethylhexanoate) selectively goes into the PEEA phase rather than the PTT phase, which lowers the Tg of PEEA. Besides topographic analysis of morphology and phase separation, tunneling atomic force microscopy was also applied to see if we can observe the surface directly for the static dissipative material. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011