RESEARCH ARTICLE Preferential migration of blend components leading to different intercalated morphology Suparno Hazra & Subhasish Paul & Deepak S. Langhe Received: 21 May 2010 / Accepted: 26 May 2010 / Published online: 30 September 2010 # Central Institute of Plastics Engineering & Technology 2010 Abstract Impact modified blends of polypropylene (PP) and a commercial polyolefinic elastomer (POE) were prepared and further reinforced with suitable nanoclay. The addition of elastomer and nanoclay improved the impact properties significantly, whereas moderate improvement was observed in tensile strength, flexural strength, flexural modulus, and elongation at break. The heat distortion temperatures of the filled compositions were close to that of neat PP. The compositions exhibited excellent flow characteristics. Blending sequence between PP, POE and Nanoclay was altered and its effect on the properties of Nanocomposite was investigated. The preferential migration of the blend components leading to different intercalated morphology was reported. Keywords Nanocomposites . PP-POE blends . Preferential migration . Morphology Introduction Polypropylene (PP) is a widely used commodity plastics, which offers an important class of new material on impact modification. Toughened Polypropylene is replacing even engineering polymers like ABS, HIPS in automotive applications, household and commodity goods. The impact properties of any thermoplastic material can be Int J Plast Technol (2010) 14 (Suppl 1):S30–S36 DOI 10.1007/s12588-010-0007-1 This work has been done in 2005 as part of the completion of academic degrees of SH and DL S. Hazra (*) Design Engineer, BR&D, SRF Ltd., Chennai, India e-mail: suparno.hazra@gmail.com S. Paul Manager, PARC, Reliance Industries Limited, Mumbai, India D. S. Langhe Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA