Thermal Analysis Used to Test Polymer Processing
Ferenc Cser, Margaret Jollands, Sati N. Bhattacharya
Rheology and materilas Processing Centre, School of Civil and Chemical ngineering, RMIT University
Australia
Keywords: thermal, properties, processing
Temperature Modulated Differential Scanning Calorimeter (TMDSC) was used to characterise polymers and the effect of processing on characteristics of the polymers.
The equipment is used in a medium depth of modulation mode slow, 2 K/min heating and cooling rates respectively. The medium depth of modulation helps to analyse both the reversible and non reversible transitions. Two consecutive heating and cooling runs are used to obtain information both on the thermal history of the polymer and its material characteristics. The differences between the first and second heating runs show the thermal history, and the second heating and cooling runs show the material characteristics. The differences between cooling runs also show the thermal stability of the materials.
Results from studies of a variety of composite or polymeric blend systems are given. TMDSC was used to study the miscibility of different polymers such as low- and linear low-density polyethylene, polypropylene with different grades of polyethylene, as well as to look at peculiarities in the thermal history and processing conditions of these polymers and their blends. TMDSC was also used to study the efficiency of material separation of multi layer polymeric films as well as to monitor the cross linking reaction of thermosetting resins in composites formed from rice hull-filled phenolic resins