CYCLIC OLEFIN COPOLYMER FOAMS PART 1: SOLUBILITY MEASUREMENT OF CO2 IN CYCLIC OLEFIN COPOLYMER AND PRELIMIARNY FOAMING STUDY

摘要

Cyclic olefin copolymers (COCs) is a novel engineering plastic with excellent thermal and mechanical properties which make them viable alternative to polyolefins. In this study, the solubility of supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) in COC (Topas 6017) was measured at temperature from 453.15 to 493.15 K and pressure up to 17 MPa by a modified pressure decay system which can be operated in high temperature environment. The volumetric expansion of polymer caused by the dissolved CQ2 were calculated by using the Sanchez-Lacombe equation of state (SL EoS) and these volume data were used to correct the apparent solubility data. The results demonstrated that solubility of CO2 in COC increased with the elevated pressure and decreased with the elevated temperature. SL EoS can correlated the solubility within 6% average relative deviation by introducing a temperature dependent interaction parameter. Moreover the COC foams were prepared by using pressure quench process and some preliminary results were obtained.