Degradation behavior of maleated polyethylene/ground tire rubber thermoplastic elastomers with and without stabilizers

This work investigates the effects of different degradation processes (weathering, thermal ageing and re-extrusion) on maleated polyethylene (MAPE), as well as MAPE/ground tire rubber (GTR) thermoplastic elastomers with and without stabilizers (thermal stabilizer, UVA and HALS). Mechanical characterizations revealed that GTR addition reduced compounds stability against thermal ageing at both 80 and 90 °C. But addition of stabilizers increased thermal stability of the MAPE phase. However, the results suggest that the stabilizers had no effect on the GTR phase. Mechanical characterizations also showed that weathering caused degradation in MAPE, while presence of stabilizers decreased the effects of degradation. Addition of GTR also increased significantly the stability of MAPE against weathering (due to presence of carbon black in GTR). Re-extrusion resulted in lower MAPE modulus (due to decreased molecular weight), while the modulus of GTR filled compounds increased. Re-extrusion also led to decreased GTR average particle size, especially at higher GTR contents. Morphological analyses showed that thermal ageing and re-extrusion did not change significantly blend morphology, but weathering, on the other hand, led to severe degradation of both MAPE and GTR filled compounds surface. Compression set of MAPE/GTR compounds was found to decrease with increasing degradation level (due to crosslinking). Finally, sample density slightly increased with degradation level (also due to crosslinking).