Manufacturing process for open celled microcellular foam

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for making an open celled microcellular foam comprising providing at least one foamable polymer and a crosslinking agent in an extruder, injecting at least one blowing agent into said at least one foamable polymer and said crosslinking agent in said extruder, blending said blowing agent injected into said at least one foamable polymer and said crosslinking agent in said extruder, feeding said blended blowing agent, at least one foamable polymer and said crosslinking agent in said extruder to a die, and depressurizing said blended blowing agent, said at least one foamable polymer and said crosslinking agent.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This is a Divisional of application 10 / 436,740 filed May 13, 2003, now allowed. [0002] Reference is made to commonly assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 436,654 by Dontula et al. filed on May 13, 2003 entitled “A Manufacturing Process And Use For Open Celled Microcellular Foam”, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0003] The present invention relates to the preparation of open celled microcellular foams. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0004] Until recently, open celled foam structures have been manufactured almost exclusively from polyurethane thermosetting materials. D. Klempner and K. C. Frisch, Handbook of Polymeric Foams and Foam Technology, N.Y. (1991). Open celled thermoplastic foam structures have been produced by foaming as well as several other methods, such as voiding, leaching / extraction, thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) and phase inversion processes. [0005] One way...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0021] The present invention includes several advantages, not all of which are incorporated in a single embodiment. The advantages may include a high open cell content or a high open cell content with very small cell size. The method may advantageously provide a large process window with respect to temperature and pressure. The method may be applicable to multiple resins. The open celled foams may have selective osmosis transportation, high permeability to gas and vapor, and be better ability to absorb and dampen sound.

Problems solved by technology

This process is cumbersome, expensive and uses chemical solvents.

This technique of manufacturing is cumbersome, involves a sequence of batch processes and does not yield a high cell density.

Furthermore, it is not a continuous process and extraction of organic compounds needs to be done with care to prevent collapse.

This technique is not attractive since it typically deals with organic solvents.

Few thermoplastic foams with a very high open cell content are available because the manufacturing technologies for open celled thermoplastic foams have not been developed extensively.

However, such foams with isolated cells are not fit for applications requiring high permeability of gas or vapor, selective osmosis, and absorption and dampening of sound.

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