ABSTRACT

Plastomer, a nomenclature constructed from the synthesis of the words plastic and elastomer, illustrates a family of polymers, which are softer than the common engineering thermoplastics such as polyamides, polypropylenes, or polystyrenes. The most common designators for plastomers are copolymers, which are intermolecularly and intramolecularly uniform in composition. Structurally, plastomers straddle the property range between elastomers and plastics. Plastomers inherently contain some level of crystallinity due to the predominant monomer in a crystalline sequence within the polymer chains. The commercial growth of plastomers has been unexpectedly robust for an entirely new polymer. The melt rheology and the corresponding solid-state morphological studies indicate that plastomers of similar composition are essentially miscible with each other as well as the homopolymer of the predominant monomer in the melt. There have a number of efforts which would extend the beneficial effects the E-plastomers have in blends with isotactic polypropylene to other, more-polar engineering thermoplastics.