ABSTRACT
Thermoplastic dynamic vulcanizates (TDV), also called elastomer alloy thermoplastic vulcanizates, belong to a novel family of thermoplastic rubbers. Again, learning from the structure formation of melt-blended impact-modified thermoplastics will help us to understand some basic rules of the microstructure development in TDVs. The target of the in-situ compatibilization is the “functionalization” of the thermoplastic polymer or the rubber, which is often termed “reactive processing.” The dynamic curing of rubber/thermoplastics blends is a very versatile process. By changing the compositional range of rubber to plastics the product hardness can cover a very broad range. The philosophy of this R&D work was to develop a shoe sole compound that met the standardized physicomechanical properties and had good melt processability and gluing capability via dynamic curing of inexpensive commodity thermoplastic resins and rubbers. The overall market share of the thermoplastic elastomers is ca. 10% in the nontire market.
