A New Promising Nucleating Agent for Polymer Foaming: Applications of Ordered Mesoporous Silica Particles in Polymethyl Methacrylate Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Microcellular Foaming

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• 作者：Jintao Yang ; Lingqi Huang ; Yuefang Zhang ; Feng Chen ; Ping Fan ; Mingqiang Zhong ; Shukai Yeh
• 刊名：Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：October 2, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：52
• 期：39
• 页码：14169-14178
• 全文大小：625K
• 年卷期：v.52,no.39(October 2, 2013)
• ISSN：1520-5045

文摘

The introduction of inorganic particles to improve the cell morphology of polymeric foams has been studied for decades. To this end, identifying an ideal nucleating agent and understanding the methodology to control nucleation have always been the focus of this field. In this study, spherical ordered mesoporous silica (OMS) particles were synthesized and applied as a potential nucleating agent in polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) microcellular foaming. These particles were modified with a silane containing fluorine to enhance their affinity with scCO₂. For comparison, solid silica (SS) particles with almost similar particle size and surface treatment have also been studied. It was found that both of them could be well dispersed in the PMMA matrix, and exhibited excellent heterogeneous nucleation performance during the foaming process. The addition of a nucleating agent greatly increased the cell density and decreased the average cell diameter, and more importantly, there was no increase in the bulk density. Compared to SS particles, OMS particles showed higher nucleation efficiency. The addition of 5.0 wt % of OMS particles reduced the average cell diameter of PMMA foam from 1.62 to 0.66 渭m and increased the cell density from 2.3 脳 10¹¹ cells/cm³ to 3.7 脳 10¹² cells/cm³, while for the composite foams with a similar content of SS particles, the cell diameter and cell density are 1.19 渭m and 6.12 脳 10¹¹ cells/cm³, respectively. We speculated that the mesoporous structure of OMS particles might trap the CO₂ forming gas cavities. The pre-existing gas cavities resulted in a lower nucleation energy barrier. The superior nucleation effect of the OMS particles became more significant when the foaming process was conducted at low foaming temperature, low saturation pressure, and/or high pressure drop rate.