High-touch materials

To get a hint for supposing what kind of plastics would be characterized as a "high-touch" materials, I will see how the existing "real" materials are. Marble feels massive, hard and cool. Wood smells mild and feels friendly. Crystal glass looks brilliant and sounds clear. Leather feels soft and flexible. 

TUFTEC has still a defect that its molded surface is a little sticky, but I expect It to become one of the "high-touch" materials lor car interior parts, when we can improve the defect. 

With above four examples I have tried to find a clue to the "high-touch" materials and technologies. As I mentioned repeatedly, the start of developing "high-touch" plastics will be in the sat isf icat ion of functions. And, it will be more important to be conscious of consumers "kansei" and to keep efforts to make our materials more favorable. 

Guanidine Chlorate (GuChl), H2N.C NH.NH2.HC105 mw 143-54, N 29- 23%, OB to CO2 and Cl2 -22.3% colorless crysts, mp 148°(dec, Ref gives 98—100° for apparently pure material) sol in w. May be prepd by the double decompn of Gu Sulfate and Ba Chlorate, and evapn of the resultant soln over a w bath until crysts appear. As indicated in Ref 4, the thermal stability is not very high. This material is a mild expl which burns away when touched with a flame or a drop of sulfuric acid (coned). The same Ref indicates that its impact sensitivity is comparable to PA. It was proposed (Ref 3) as a component of expl mixtures with such fuels as C, S, Si, Al and an oxidizer like K nitrate... 

Muraour et al (Ref 3) think that the reason for MF not to detonate when ignited is that it burns on the surface only and the hot gases cannot penetrate inside the mass of expl, while in the case of not highly compressed material, they easily penetrate inside the mass, thus causing the deton. If this theory is accepted, then it would be understandable why LA cannot be dead-pressed. This is because when it is touched with a hot wire, it detonates without previous combustion. Diazodinitrophenol, Ag azide, Hg Azide, Ag Fulminate also cannot be dead-pressed... 

Numerous high touch fibers have been produced and commercialized (primarily in Japan) for luxury apparel. Conceptually, the geometry and fineness of the fibers are carefully modified and controlled to produce fabrics with desirable sensual responses of touch, sight, sound, comfort, and even odor (78,93). There are several techniques for producing ultrafine fibers and this has led to the production and commercialization of materials such as Ultrasuede, artificial leather and silk, fabrics with a peach-fuzz sensation, perfumed hosiery, fabrics that change color due to microencapsulation of cholesteric liquid crystals, and numerous other luxury and novelty textile products. 

Drawdown from the die to nip is typically ca 10%. Sheet extmsion requires that the resin be of high melt viscosity to prevent excessive sag of the melt between the die and the nip. The melt should reach the nip before touching any other part of the middle roU to prevent uncontrolled cooling of the resin. The appearance of the lower surface of the sheet is deterrnined by the middle roU, ie, its poHsh, surface temperature, and freedom from condensed materials. The upper surface is cooled by air and has a more glossy appearance. Neither the top roU nor the bottom roU greatly affect the appearance of the top surface of the sheet. Edges of the sheet are trimmed. 

Recent demands for polymeric materials request them to be multifunctional and high performance. Therefore, the research and development of composite materials have become more important because single-polymeric materials can never satisfy such requests. Especially, nanocomposite materials where nanoscale fillers are incorporated with polymeric materials draw much more attention, which accelerates the development of evaluation techniques that have nanometer-scale resolution." To date, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been widely used for this purpose, while the technique never catches mechanical information of such materials in general. The realization of much-higher-performance materials requires the evaluation technique that enables us to investigate morphological and mechanical properties at the same time. AFM must be an appropriate candidate because it has almost comparable resolution with TEM. Furthermore, mechanical properties can be readily obtained by AFM due to the fact that the sharp probe tip attached to soft cantilever directly touches the surface of materials in question. Therefore, many of polymer researchers have started to use this novel technique." In this section, we introduce the results using the method described in Section 21.3.3 on CB-reinforced NR. 

In contrast to high density arrays low density arrays are made by deposition of pre-synthesized oligonucleotides or proteins on activated surfaces. There are several printing techniques for fabricating microarrays Non-contact biochip arrayers, commonly based on the piezoelectric effect, can apply controlled sub-nanoliter probe volumes to pre-specified locations on the chip surface. Due to the fact that the dispenser does not touch the surface, a non-contact arrayer provides low risk of contamination and is most suitable for printing on soft materials such as hydrogels. 

The modulus of PE resins increases with increasing solid density. Thus, a HDPE resin has a higher modulus than an LDPE resin, as shown by the data in Table 2.3. In general, resins with low solid densities feel soft to the touch while resins with high densities feel hard. The and Tg for selected semicrystalline and amorphous materials are given in Table 2.3. 

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