Thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) have attracted considerable attention as typical “green” polymers in
recent years and have been widely used in industry because
they combine the excellent resilience of conventional
elastomers and the easy recyclability of thermoplastics. With
a new understanding of the formation and agglomeration of
the rubber nanoparticles in ethylene propylene diene
monomer/polypropylene (EPDM/PP) TPV, we revealed a
new mechanism for the morphology evolution of TPV during
dynamic vulcanization (DV). The phase inversion in TPV is
dominated by the formation and agglomeration of the rubber nanoparticles rather than the elongation and breakup of the crosslinked rubber phase as previously reported. The size of the rubber agglomerates increases with increasing DV time and then
remains constant after DV. In addition, we studied the relationship between the cross-linking of the rubber phase, formation and
agglomeration of the rubber nanoparticles, and phase inversion and variation of the rubber network during DV. This study
provides guidance to control the microstructure of TPV in preparation of high performance TPV products for automobile and
electronic applications