pps proceeding - Abstract Preview
pps proceeding
Symposium: S07 - Polymer Foams
Poster Presentation
 
 

A Facile and Effective Approach to Improve Cell Stabilization of Thermoplastic Polyurethane’ Supercritical CO2 Foaming

Lan Bin (1), Li Pengzhi (1), Gong Pengjian (1), Yang Qi (1)*

(1) Sichuan University - Sichuan - China

Cell stabilization of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) foams made from supercritical CO2 (scCO2) foaming remains a huge challenge and has significantly limited TPU foams’ applications. In this work, a facile and effective approach to improve cell stabilization of TPU scCO2 foaming has been proposed by compounding nano organic montmorillonite (OMMT) with TPU. The interactions between OMMT and TPU’s segments has been investigated in-depth via several characterization methods and the mechanism of OMMT effected on TPU foam’s stabilization has been clarified. As a result, Cell stabilization of TPU foams has been significantly improved with the increasement of OMMT’s content. As OMMT’s content increased to 1ωt%, no obvious shrinkage has been observed in TPU scCO2 foams. Consequently, this work guides the direction to produce thermoplastic elastomer foams of less shrinkage via scCO2 foaming.