Grafting maleic anhydride and comonomers onto polyethylene

Grafting dicarboxylic anhydrides onto polyolefins has great practical importance. The process of grafting maleic anhydride onto high‐density polyethylene in the presence of various comonomers in an intermeshing corotating twin‐screw extruders was studied. Three types of comonomers were investigated: (i) vinyl monomers, including styrene and methacrylic acid; (ii) esters of dicarboxylic acids forming succinic groups after grafting, such as fumaric acid; and (iii) esters of fumaric and maleic acid and ethylenically unsaturated cyclic dicarboxylic anhydrides, such as Diels–Alder adducts of maleic anhydride; and (iv) dienes and dodecenyl succinic anhydride.