0459615 - ÚCHP 2017 DE eng C - Conference Paper (international conference)
Topiař, Martin - Nistor, A. - De Masi, D. - Sovová, Helena - Kosek, J.
Effect of Co-solvents on the Morphology and Porosity of Microcellular Polystyrene Foams.
Book of Abstracts. 2016, s. 212. ISBN N.
[European Meeting on Supercritical Fluids /15./. Essen (DE), 08.05.2016-11.05.2016]
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA14-18938S
Institutional support: RVO:67985858
Keywords : microcellular foams * supercritical CO2 * co-solvent
Subject RIV: CI - Industrial Chemistry, Chemical Engineering

Polystyrene (PS) foams are used as packaging materials and mainly as thermal insulators. The improvement of their thermal insulation properties is of great interest because it will save material and energy. This improvement can be reached, for example, by decreasing the cell size below 10 m and by preparing the so-called microcellular foams. However, the prepared microcellular foams often have an insufficient porosity that is lower than 90 %. In this work, we use co-solvents to increase the foam porosity. Microcellular PS foams were prepared by the pressure induced foaming method using high-pressure and supercritical CO2 (scCO2) and various co-solvents, and later characterized with SEM. The presence of co-solvents increased the porosity by the occurrence of larger cells and by the formation of interconnected open cells, which made the morphology less homogeneous. But at very high co-solvent concentrations the morphology became homogeneous and a very high porosity was reached.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0259781