Effects of Nucleating Agent on Cell Structure of MCP
Minoru Shimbo, Daisaku Toyooka, Hidetaka Kawashima, Tatsuo Izumitani
Kanazawa Instituite of Technology
Japan

Keywords: Microcellular Plastics, Nucleating agent, Cell Morphology

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Recently, the development of new materials and processing technologies considered saving resource, energy and protecting the environment from destruction are making steady progress in various fields. Foamed plastics are a kind of composite materials consisted in air and resin, and contribute for saving resource. But many toxic chemical blowing agents were used as blowing agents for introducing cells until now and causing environmental problems. In order to improve these problems, new foamed plastics that are called microcellular plastics (MCPs) are investigated actively in the world. MCPs are characterized by using supercritical carbon dioxide and nitrogen, which are easy on the environment as blowing agent, rather than toxic chemical blowing agents. And besides MCPs are unique cellular materials in which voids, smaller than the natural flaw size pre-existing in polymers, are nucleated, resulting in material costs savings without significant reductions and sometimes improvements in mechanical properties.
In this paper, the effects of nucleating agent on cell structure of MCP were studied. In foaming process, nucleation of the cells and cells growth has various effects for foamed plastics. By introducing nucleating agent into matrix, it makes a great number of nucleation of the cells and cell growth is urged. That is, these effects have abilities higher cell density and lower cell diameter. However, the relationship between the diameter of nucleating agent, contents of nucleating agent and cell structure are not cleared. In here, the effects of nucleating agent diameter and contents of nucleating agent on cell diameter, cell density and cell distribution of MCP was investigated.