High-temperature polymers, desirable properties

Early research on high temperature polymers concentrated primarily on thermal stability and paid little attention to their processability and cost. However, for a polymer to be successful as a c< miercially viable structural matrix, it must exhibit a favorable combination of processability, performance characteristics, and price. In particular, a desirable high temperature polymeric system for coatings, composites, and adhesives applications must exhibit adaptability to conventional processing techniques at low temperature and pressure, should exhibit good mechanical properties, acceptable repairability, weatherability, and cost effectiveness. 

Much of the work that has been done up to this point on high temperature polymer blends is the definition of miscible blend polymer pairs and an understanding of the features that lead to that miscibility. The development of miscible blends often leads to the ability to tailor the properties, including the Tg of mixtures. Such a tailoring is an alternative to the development of entirely new polymeric materials with the desired property profile. One of the advantages of the blend approach is that it is generally faster and less expensive than the synthesis and scale-up of an entirely new polymer. The downside of the blend approach is that it is difficult to define miscible pairs and miscibility is often the situation that is not observed with polymer mixtures. 

Pol5dmides are known as reliable high temperature polymers with superior mechanical and electrical properties. Polyimides can be easily prepared by reactions between dianhydrides and diamines, and many types of polyimides have been prepared by structural modification of the monomers to obtain the polyimides having desirable... 

Polypropylene polymers are typically modified with ethylene to obtain desirable properties for specific applications. Specifically, ethylene—propylene mbbers are introduced as a discrete phase in heterophasic copolymers to improve toughness and low temperature impact resistance (see Elastomers, ETHYLENE-PROPYLENE rubber). This is done by sequential polymerisation of homopolymer polypropylene and ethylene—propylene mbber in a multistage reactor process or by the extmsion compounding of ethylene—propylene mbber with a homopolymer. Addition of high density polyethylene, by polymerisation or compounding, is sometimes used to reduce stress whitening. In all cases, a superior balance of properties is obtained when the sise of the discrete mbber phase is approximately one micrometer. Examples of these polymers and their properties are shown in Table 2. Mineral fillers, such as talc or calcium carbonate, can be added to polypropylene to increase stiffness and high temperature properties, as shown in Table 3. 

Electrical Properties. Polysulfones offer excellent electrical insulative capabiUties and other electrical properties as can be seen from the data in Table 7. The resins exhibit low dielectric constants and dissipation factors even in the GH2 (microwave) frequency range. This performance is retained over a wide temperature range and has permitted appHcations such as printed wiring board substrates, electronic connectors, lighting sockets, business machine components, and automotive fuse housings, to name a few. The desirable electrical properties along with the inherent flame retardancy of polysulfones make these polymers prime candidates in many high temperature electrical and electronic appHcations. 

FIRE RETARDANT FILLERS. The next major fire retardant development resulted from the need for an acceptable fire retardant system for such new thermoplastics as polyethylene, polypropylene and nylon. The plasticizer approach of CP or the use of a reactive monomer were not applicable to these polymers because the crystallinity upon which their desirable properties were dependent were reduced or destroyed in the process of adding the fire retardant. Additionally, most halogen additives, such as CP, were thermally unstable at the high molding temperatures required. The introduction of inert fire retardant fillers in 1965 defined two novel approaches to fire retardant polymers. 

At the other end of the temperature spectrum, with high thermal stability of siloxane-modified poly(arylene carbonates) also a desired property, the onset of thermal decomposition (40) for polymers 1-12 was found to be in the range of 385-456°C (as determined from TGA curves obtained by heating polymer samples in nitrogen at a heating rate of 20°C/min.). There does not appear to be any pronounced trend in regard to variation of the thermal stability with structure in polymers 1-12. The small differences in the values of T for these polymers can be due... 

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