Oil spills not only cause significant economic losses; they also harm the environment. In this study, high‐melt‐strength polypropylene (HMSPP) and linear polypropylene (PP) were compounded at different ratios and foamed by supercritical CO2 at various temperatures and pressures to develop open‐cell foams for oil absorption applications. The experimental results show that adding HMSPP increased the foam expansion ratio and the open‐cell content and that the foam processing window widened with increasing HMSPP content. The oil absorption experiment results show that the amount of oil absorption increased with the foam expansion ratio and that low oil viscosity resulted in high oil absorption. In addition, the amount of oil absorption remained unchanged after 10 cycles of oil absorption experiments. The oil absorption kinetics study shows that the oil absorption process complied with the pseudo‐second‐order law.
Nanocellular foam has raised much interest because its
physical
and mechanical properties are superior to those of microcellular foams.
The hot-bath foaming method has been common on a laboratory scale
due to its faster heat transfer rate. However, because of the nature
of the free foaming process, the hot-bath foaming method may not be
capable of making large, flat samples. This study uses the hot-press
process to produce nanocellular foam. The results of hot-bath and
hot-press foaming methods were compared with theoretical simulations.
Both processes were able to produce cell sizes lower than 40 nm. The
hot-press foamed samples exhibited larger cell size, higher expansion
ratio, and higher aspect ratio (AR) than the hot-bath foamed samples.
The hot-press foaming process demonstrated that it has the potential
to create sizable and flat nanocellular samples. The AR of cells foamed
in the hot-press method was as high as 1.93, creating a new manufacturing
method for anisotropic nanocellular foam with a cell size of less
than 100 nm.
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