Study of blends of HDPE and different grades of CaCO3. Part I. Factorial experimental design

Calcium carbonate (CaCO3)/high density polyethylene (HDPE) composites were prepared in a HAAKE twin screw extruder. The influence of the CaCO3 particle size and content and the processing conditions were investigated by using a factorial experimental design. The dependent variables studied were tensile properties, such as Young's modulus, stress at break and toughness, and the rheological property, zero-shear viscosity, η0. Preliminary results have shown that the most significant processing variables were content and mineral filler type. Mathematical modeling has given us a more efficient evaluation of the results obtained and has become an important tool in the development of this work.