Nanocomposite thermoplastic polymer sheets for medical applications

The research project is dedicated to the development of nanocomposite thermoplastic polymer sheets made via twin-screw extrusion, showing improved mechanical properties. The gain in mechanical properties allows for a reduction of the current sheet thickness, causing a decrease in raw materials and energy consumption.

The second year we focused, next to poly-caprolactone PCL, on polypropylene PP, which is a potential candidate to expand the high-melting-temperature (HMTTP) product range and on poly(ethylene-co-octene) LLDPE, a transparent polyolefin with a melting temperature of ca. 65°C, which is comparable to that of PCL (hence extending the low-melting-temperature (LMTTP) product range).

The major objectives, in respect to the general aim mentioned above, can be summarized as:
- Selecting the appropriate nanofiller type (and optimum filler content) for PP- and LLDPE-based nanocomposites using melt mixing (i.e. twin-screw extrusion).
- Evaluating which analytical techniques are best suited for studying the obtained dispersion degree of the nanofiller.
- Trying to correlate the nanofiller dispersion to both the observed mechanical properties and the crystallization behavior of the nanocomposite.
- Scaling up the extrusion to pilot scale.
- Starting up the modeling of the extrusion process.
- Starting up the modeling of crystallization of sheets during application.

These topics will now be thoroughly discussed using the same layout as the application manuscript to facilitate comparing both documents.