Blending Petroleum Waxes with Suitable Polymeric Additives as a Simple and Promising Way to Improve the Quality of Petroleum Waxes for Numerous Industrial Applications

Abstract

Basic waxes resulting from all oil refineries such as Paraffin wax and Microcrystalline wax are to be blended using additives to tailor the wax compound’s specifications. Such compounded waxes are suitable to be used in packing, food, labeling, adhesives, and other industrial applications depending on the ratios of paraffin wax (PW) to microcrystalline wax (MCW), in addition to some specific additives affecting the physical, mechanical and thermal properties of the melt. Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA) copolymer is used as a viscosity modifier and tackifing agent, poly hydrogenated dicyclo-pentadiene (HD), and poly alpha-methyl styrene (MS) are wax performing agents based on the desired molecular weight and crystallinity of the wax blends. Different ratios of the polymeric additives were blended with both the basic paraffin and microcrystalline wax. The resulting compounded wax samples were evaluated for their melting behavior: congealing point (CP) and softening point (SP). The drop melting point (DMP) and dynamic viscosities, as well as the hardness, represented as low penetration value) are also investigated. The mechanical properties of the resulting compounded waxes (tensile elongation at break) and the adhesion characteristics are related to the additives composition and percent. All the obtained results showed a complete investigation of all physical, mechanical, and thermal characteristics of the resulted wax blends as a function of their ingredients that were combined with high compatibility within the wax blends. Both the resins, i.e. poly hydrogenated dicyclopentadiene (HD) and poly alpha-methyl styrene (MS) are wax performing agents based on the desired molecular weight and crystallinity of the wax created promising physical, mechanical, and technological properties in all the compounded wax samples.

Keywords

• compounded wax (cw)
• paraffin wax (pw)
• microcrystalline waxes (mcw)
• paraffin (pn)
• dynamic viscosity (dv)
• tensile strength at break (ts)