Application Viability of Methyl Formate Blown Rigid Polyurethane Foams In Different End Products

摘要

ABSTRACTThis Master’s by Research thesis is an Industry Oriented Project, and the Researcher is a full-time employee in an Australian Polyurethane Company as a Senior Chemical Engineer.The thesis examines the application viability of the Methyl formate blown rigid foams. In this regard the real trial applications, e.g. pipe filling, rigid foam spray and moulding have been conducted, which are commonly adopted in making most of the end products. In this thesis the physical properties that are most crucial from application point of view have been focused like dimensional stability, Compressive Strength, close cell contents, thermal conductivity and buoyancy. Comparison of few of these properties is also done, where needed, between the rigid foams blown with Methyl formate Vs 141b - otherwise only Methyl formate blown foam is focused. The effects of different parameters on thermal conductivity of the foam have also been examined which is the most important characteristic of the foam used for insulation purpose.All these application trials have been found quite satisfactory and also achieved satisfactory results in respect to all those required characteristics of the foam e.g. flowability in pipe filling trial, thermal conductivity in insulation spray trial, dimensional stability and close cell contents, compressive strength in Buoyancy loss test.It is obvious and proved that the lower thermal conductivity value of 141b compared to that of Methyl formate and Carbon dioxide gives lower thermal conductivity values both in spray foams and the hand pour. But the Methyl formate blown foams also show quite reasonable values to make it a choice as insulation foam.The Methyl formate blown spray insulation foams are successfully being produced and sold in the market by FSI USA and Australian Urethane Systems in Australia. Their trade name for Methyl formate is ECOMATE. In buoyancy test the rigid PU foam with moulded density range 40-42 kg/m3 gave close cell content greater than 95% and compressive strength of the range 0.230 MPa to 0.330 MPa and dimensional stability well within the spec as required for floatation vessels.The % buoyancy loss of the foam immersed for 30 days in pure water was found -3.9551 % and in 5% trisodium phosphate water solution was -4.2423%.This promising buoyancy results make the Methyl formate blown rigid foam the good choice for floating vessels body cavity filling as well. In a nutshell Methyl formate blown rigid foams are the good choice of the time.