Rheology of blends of a thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer with polyphenylene sulfide

Blends of thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) and polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) were studied over the entire composition range using Rheometrics Stress Rheometer, capillary rheometer, and differential scanning calorimeter. There is no molecular scale mixing or chemical reaction between the components, as evidenced by melting and crystallization points in the PPS phase. From the strain scaling transients test at low-rate, LCP and the blends require approximately 60 strain units to obtain steady state shearing results. The large recoveries in the strain recovery test, magnitude 3 to 3.3 strain unit, are likely the results of texture present in LCPs. With increasing PPS content in LCP/PPS blends, the total recovery declines. Scaling of the transient strain rate remains, but the magnitude of the transients is reduced. At low-rate, when the LCP is added to the PPS, the pure melts have similar viscosity: 500 Pa · s for LCP and 600 Pa · s for PPS, but the viscosity of the blends goes through a maximum with concentration that is nearly three times the viscosity of the individual melts. At high-rate, a significant depression of the viscosity is observed in the PPS-rich compositions and this may be due to the fibrous structure of the LCP at high shear rates.