Thermal and viscoelastic behaviour of copolymers of propene and 1-hexene

The thermal and viscoelastic behaviour of several copolymers of propene and 1-hexene have been studied in a wide range of compositions. The samples were prepared with a Ziegler-Natta catalyst with both internal and external donors. A significant amount of crystallinity has been found for the sample with a comonomer content as high as 19 mol %. The dynamic mechanical results show a considerable decrease of the storage modulus in the copolymers in relation to that of iPP. A single relaxation, corresponding to the glass transition, has been found in all the samples. Only the copolymer with the highest hexene content seems to display the beginning of another relaxation at low temperature.