Microcellular polymers and composites. Part I. Types of foaming agents and technologies of microcellular processing

Abstract

In the review the principles of technology of microcellular polymers preparations were presented. The process consists of three steps: the bubbles nucleation, growth and stabilization. The examples physical foaming agents most often used such as carbon dioxide or nitrogen were given. Attention is paid to the fact that choice of foaming agent influences the structures of the foams obtained. An important group of chemical foaming agents, being organic or inorganic solid substances decomposing during the foaming process with carbon dioxide or nitrogen release, was also described. Three basic technologies used for microcellular materials preparation, i.e. MuCell (Fig. 1 and 2), Optifoam (Fig. 3) and ErgoCell (Fig. 4) were discussed in detail. The examples of applications of the materials prepared by the technologies mentioned above were given (Fig. 5-9).