Authors: S A E Boyer M Baba J M Nedelec JeanPierre E Grolier
Publish Date: 2008/03/05
Volume: 29, Issue: 6, Pages: 1907-1920
Abstract
Polymer microorganization can be modified by a combination of three constraints thermal hydrostatic and fluid sorption In selecting the fluid’s nature chemically active or inert and its physical state liquid or supercritical new “materials” can be generated In addition the interplay of temperature and pressure allows tailoring the obtained material structure for specific applications Several complementary techniques have been developed to modify analyze and characterize the end products scanning transitiometry vibratingwire VWPVT coupling thermoporosimetry and temperaturemodulated DSC TMDSC The great variety of possible applications in materials science is illustrated with different polymers which can produce materials from soft gel to rigid foams when submitted to fluid sorption typical fluids being methane or a simple gas CO2 or N2 Absorption of an appropriate fluid in a crosslinked polymer leads to a swelling phenomenon Thermoporosimetry is a calorimetric technique developed to measure the shift by confinement of thermaltransition temperatures of the swelling fluids which can be currently used solvents or mercury Application of thermoporosimetry to a swollen crosslinked polymer allows calculation of the mesh size distribution and evaluation of the degree of reticulation of the polymer The same technique can be applied to characterize the pore size distribution in a foamed polymer
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