Study of the effect of branch content of octene-based linear low-density polyethylene on its melt miscibility with high-density polyethylene by inverse gas chromatography

Inverse gas chromatography was used to measure Flory–Huggins interaction parameters (χ<INF>23</INF>) for five binary blends consisting of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and octene-based linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) with different compositions at four elevated temperatures. The branch content of the LLDPE used in each pair of the blends ranged from 2 to 87 branches per 1000 backbone carbons. To obtain solvent-independent χ<INF>23</INF>, the data analysis approach recently proposed by Zhao and Choi (Polymer 2001, 42, 1075) was used. The results indicate that the higher the branch content of LLDPE, the higher the measured χ<INF>23</INF>, signifying that HDPE/LLDPE blends with low branch content LLDPEs are relatively more miscible than those with high branch contents. In particular, when the branch content of LLDPE is higher than 50 branches per 1000 backbone carbons, phase separation may occur. This result is in good agreement with other researchers' results obtained from different techniques. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 91: 1927–1931, 2004