Breaking the Performance Trade-off: Unprecedented Polymer Alloys with Heterogeneously Dispersed Nanodomains via Reactive Processing

With over 120 million tons production annually polymer alloys that dominate the plastic market cannot satisfy all expectations owing to the persistent material-property trade-off, resulting from the limitation of structural design. We herein identify an architecturally novel microstructure that features the hitherto unprecedented phase morphology for an industrially relevant system, poly (oxy methylene) (POM)/ethylene acrylic ester-glycidyl methacrylate terpolymer (EGMA) by reactive processing, where elastomer is regionally distributed as “heterogeneously dispersed nano-domains” (hDNs) in engineering plastic matrix without a distinct interface, breaking the performance trade-off impossible to be acquired with conventional counterparts. Pre-reactive blending of EGMA with poly (L-lactide) (PLLA) and subsequent melt processing with POM plastics play orthogonal yet synergistic role in the unique morphology formation, where PLLA serving as the leveraging forces for opposing uniform distribution (keeping specific distance between hNDs regions) via chemical bonds and macro-phase separation (controlling the size of EGMA nano-domains) by physical associations. The optimal materials demonstrate a record toughness (notched impact strength, 58.6 kJ/m2), extraordinary ductility (elongation at break, 420%), ultrahigh strength (tensile strength, 50.0 MPa), and desirable stiffness (Young’s modulus, 1.3 GPa). This work identified herein innovates a totally new type of morphology for multicomponent polymers, representing a paradigm shift in narrowing gap between structure and “tailor-made” property, which endows affordable all-polymer alloys with still-unexpected combination of virtues towards pilot plant scale.