Solid state processing of disentangled ultra high molecular weight polyethylene(s) for demanding applications
Polyolefins constitute the main fraction of the polymers produced by industry. By tailoring the molecular characteristics it is feasible to change the physical and mechanical properties of the synthetic polymer. For example, by varying the chain length of a simple linear polyethylene it is possible to make use of the same class of polymer as either a commodity or an engineering plastic, where the latter is used for highly demanding application areas such as: security (body armour or vehicle protection due to its light weight and high tensile strength to break); healthcare (prostheses due to its biocompatibility); energy (in the form of biaxial drawn films and composites) and water filtration (membranes by changing the functionalities). Although desirable physical properties such as abrasion resistance and high impact strength increase with the increasing molar mass, the processing of these materials via conventional routes becomes very challenging. To circumvent the difficulties in the processability of the Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylenes (UHMWPE) for the production of high modulus and high strength fibers, a solution based spinning route is adopted. In this 5wt% of the polymer is dissolved in 95wt% of a solvent making the process highly environmental unfriendly. The same UHMWPE when used for hip and knee prostheses, where the requirements are adhesive and fatigue resistance, tends to fail due to poor sintering and oxidation. The processing difficulty also limits the addition of functionalities that are required for energy and water filtration applications. In this talk we show that by adopting a strategic chain-of-knowledge approach, the combination of chemistry, physics, rheology and processing leads to “disentangled polyethylenes. These polyethylenes can be processed without making use of solvent(s) to obtain high modulus high strength fibers, easy to sinter wear resistant polymer for prostheses and polymers with added functionalities, the latter applicable for membranes.
RASTOGI Sanjay
Department of Materials, Loughborough University, England (UK) Research Institute, Teijin Aramid BV, Velperweg 76, Arnhem, The Netherlands
国际会议
2011 International Conference on Advanced Fibers and Polymer Materials(2011年先进纤维与聚合物材料国际会议 ICAFPM)
上海
英文
130-130
2011-08-15（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）