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A supercritical CO2 (scCO2) foaming technology was used to develop a PLA foam with a thermal conductivity as low as 30 mW/m-K. The PLA foam’s larger optimal expansion ratio and strong infrared (IR) block ability greatly helped to achieve this outcome. Unlike the PS foams, in which nonbiodegradable carbon particles are often added to block the IR thermal radiation, the PLA foams’ intrinsic IR-absorbing characteristic, which acted via the ester group in the PLA molecular chain, further enhanced its environmental impact. Overall, environmentally friendly PLA foams, made by using the nontoxic scCO2 foaming method, offer a sound alternative to PS foams.

This work aims to predict the thermal conductivity of microcellular and nanocellular thermal insulation foams to explore the correlation between the cellular structure and the thermal insulating properties.

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Molecular weight reduction of natural rubber (NR) with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) oxidizing agent is limited in biphasic water-toluene systems that is attributed to mass transfer. In this work, CO2 was applied to the (aqueous H2O2)-(toluene-NR) systems with the objective of improving reaction efficiency. Experiments were performed on the reaction system with CO2 at 12 MPa and at reaction temperatures and times of 60°C–80°C and 1 h–10 h to evaluate the reaction kinetics. CO2 could enhance the NR molecular weight reduction by lowering the activation energy (from 121 kJ·mol−1 to 38 kJ·mol−1). The role of CO2 in the reaction system seems to be the formation of oxidative peroxycarbonic acid intermediate and promotion of mass transport due to the reduction in the toluene-NR viscosity and interfacial tension. The epoxidized liquid NRs (M̅n=4.9×103 g·mol−1) obtained from NR molecular weight reduction was further processed to prepare hydroxyl telechelic NR (M̅n=1.0×103 g·mol−1) and biobased polyurethane.

Compounds of poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) (EVA with vinyl acetate content 33%) with three different organic peroxides, namely, dialkyl peroxide, peroxyester peroxide, and peroxyketal peroxide, were prepared with a twin screws extruder and a two-roll mixing mill. The cure behavior of the EVA compounds was analyzed from rheographs, which were obtained by a moving die rheometer (MDR) at various curing temperatures between 150˚C to 170˚C. The effects of organic peroxides on cure behavior were examined. The dynamic curing obtained by the torque rheometer provided sufficient experimental data to show that dialkyl peroxide is not suitable because it has a high half-life temperature and its by-products can discolor the final product. Peroxyester peroxide is good for curing at temperatures in the range of 150˚C to 160˚C, which accomplished an ultimate cure within 5 to 8 minutes. Also, the peroxyketal peroxide has higher performance, which decreased the optimum cure time to 3 minutes. The thermal decomposition mechanism of organic peroxide was applied to explain how the cure behavior is affected by generated free radicals.

Water-assisted injection molding (WAIM) has been widely used for tubular plastic parts due to its advantages of relatively low cost and fast cycling time. However, the non-uniform distribution of the wall thickness, especially at the sharp corner, is still a basic problem in the WAIM process. This work presents the effects of sharp corner angles on wall thickness distribution in sections near corners for various processing conditions of the WAIM process, including melt temperature, mold temperature, water delay time, water holding time, and holding pressure. Three grades of polypropylene (PP) resins with different melt flow indices were studied using seven mold geometries that varied the angle of the sharp corner section. The wall thickness distribution at the corner sections were characterized in terms of inner and outer residual wall thicknesses, hollow core ratio, and the percentage of difference between the inner and outer wall thicknesses. In addition, computational fluid dynamic simulations with Moldflow Plastics Insight version 4.1 were performed for each sharp corner angle. It was found that the wall thickness distribution of the straight tube was more uniform than those of the curve tubes. Water injection delay time and water pressure were the major parameters that had a significant impact on the hollowed core ratios, while the percent difference between inner and outer wall thicknesses was mainly influenced by melt temperature.