Polypropylene/natural rubber thermoplastic vulcanizates by eco-friendly and sustainable electron induced reactive processing

• PP/NR TPVs were produced by electron induced reactive processing.
• We studied mechanical, morphological, and rheological properties of PP/NR TPVs.
• A balance was found between chain scission and cross-linking in both NR as well as PP.
• The mechanical properties strongly depend on viscosity mismatch and dispersion of the blend components.

TPVs are a special class of thermoplastic and elastomer blend where cross-linking of elastomeric phase takes place during melt mixing process known as dynamic vulcanization (DV). A 50/50 blend of natural rubber (NR) and polypropylene (PP) were dynamically vulcanized using Electron Induced Reactive Processing (EIReP) as a function of absorbed dose (150, 250, and 350 kGy) at fixed electron energy (1.5 MeV) and dose per rotation. Different methods like tensile test, DSC, melt rheology, and SEM have been employed to understand the structure–property relationship of the prepared samples. The results suggest that EIReP is a novel technique to offer handful of additional features without compromising the end user property.