Development of Barite-Filled Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene Composites: Mechanical, Thermal, Melt-Flow and Morphological Characterizations

Abstract

Barite mineral (BRT) was compounded with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene terpolymer (ABS) with four varied filling ratio of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% by weight. ABS/BRT composites and unfilled ABS were fabricated by twin screw micro-extruder and test samples were shaped using injection molding process. Tensile tests, shore hardness measurements and impact tests, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), melt-flow index (MFI) study and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) characterization techniques were performed in order to investigate mechanical, thermo-mechanical, melt-flow and morphological performance of composites, respectively. Mechanical tests results showed that tensile strength and hardness of unfilled ABS were enhanced as BRT content increased. DMA study revealed that in addition to glass transition temperature, storage modulus of ABS raised by BRT inclusions. However, impact energy of ABS exhibited decreasing trend with the loading level of BRT. According to MFI measurements, BRT additions caused no significant change for MFI parameter of ABS regardless of concentration. It was confirmed by SEM microphotographs that the dispersion of BRT particles was found to be more homogeneous into ABS phase for their lower contents. The filling ratio of 10% BRT yield the highest performance among fabricated ABS based composites according to test results.