Experiment and simulation of foaming injection molding of polypropylene/nano-calcium carbonate composites by supercritical carbon dioxide

Microcellular injection molding of neat isotactic polypropylene(iPP) and isotactic polypropylene/nano-calcium carbonate composites(i PP/nano-CaCO_3) was performed using supercritical carbon dioxide as the physical blowing agent. The influences of filler content and operating conditions on microstructure morphology of i PP and i PP/nano-CaCO_3 microcellular samples were studied systematically. The results showed the bubble size of the microcellular samples could be effectively decreased while the cell density increased for i PP/nano-CaCO_3 composites, especially at high CO_2 concentration and back pressure, low mold temperature and injection speed, and high filler content. Then Moldex 3D was applied to simulate the microcellular injection molding process, with the application of the measured ScCO_2 solubility and diffusion data for i PP and i PP/nano-Ca CO_3 composites respectively. For neat i PP, the simulated bubble size and density distribution in the center section of tensile bars showed a good agreement with the experimental values. However, for i PP/nano-CaCO_3 composites, the correction factor for nucleation activation energy F and the pre-exponential factor of nucleation rate f_0 were obtained by nonlinear regression on the experimental bubble size and density distribution. The parameters F and f_0 can be used to predict the microcellular injection molding process for i PP/nano-CaCO_3 composites by Moldex 3D.

Preparation, Antibacterial and Antistatic Properties of PP/Ag-Ms/CB Composites

Polypropylene（PP） composites that contain silver micro-particles（MILLION KILLER, denoted as Ag-Ms） and conductive carbon black（CB） have both antibacterial and antistatic properties. In the present study, the antibacterial and antistatic PP/Ag-Ms/CB composites were prepared by melt blending. The results showed that when the content was 0.8 wt%, Ag-Ms could be uniformly dispersed in the PP matrix and the mechanical properties of the composites remained stable. And the reduction percentages of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli were more than 80% which showed the good antibacterial behavior. In addition, conductive carbon black had reinforcing and toughening effects on the mechanical properties of PP/Ag-Ms/CB composites. When the content of CB was beyond 30 wt%, the surface resistance of the composite was reduced to less than 108 Ω which showed a remarkable antistatic property. According to the different filling content of conductive carbon black, it can flexibly regulate the resistivity of PP, and the conductive effect is durable and stable. We thus can produce permanent antistatic materials.