Understanding Environmental Stress Cracking of Polyethylene by Biodiesel Fuel

生物燃料在运输行业的兴起提高了能源安全，并进一步延长了石油资源的寿命。生物柴油是由动植物脂肪酸衍生物合成的，产生的燃料具有与标准柴油非常不同的流动和能量特性。然而，在以汽油为基础的系统中引入替代燃料往往不是没有挑战的。该行业正在努力解决海船和农业设备中的燃料箱问题，这些油箱在过渡到替代燃料后正迅速失效。生物燃料与这些燃料箱中通常使用的聚合物、聚乙烯和聚酰胺的广泛兼容性研究表明，几乎没有证据表明通过化学或微生物手段造成的降解性损害。然而，申请者小组中最近的研究表明，生物柴油燃料可能是一种环境应力裂解剂，这意味着它会影响聚合物链的组织，而不是直接攻击它们。这项建议旨在了解生物柴油与聚乙烯相互作用的过程，因为生物柴油似乎影响不同等级的聚乙烯，而不同于更常研究的作为应力裂解剂的洗涤剂。这项为期两年的研究将考察生物柴油进入不同等级聚乙烯的情况，并使用机械、光谱、X射线和声学技术表征组织变化。这项工作将培训硕士和博士级别的HQP在实验和分析技能方面，以及发展沟通和领导技能。这项工作的成果将被转移到聚合物行业，以指导燃料箱的配方改进，使它们对生物柴油更具抵抗力。这项研究将减少加拿大树脂供应商和储罐和管道制造商对产品故障的责任，从而使他们受益。这项工作将进一步惠及加拿大的生物柴油供应商，最近由于储罐莫名其妙的故障，这些供应商的市场出现了一些收缩，特别是在海洋领域。

The rise of biofuels in the transportation industry has provided increased energy security and furthered the longevity of petroleum resources. Biodiesel is synthesized from animal or plant fatty acid derivatives, producing a fuel with much different flow and energy properties to standard diesel fuel. Introducing alternative fuels into a petrol-based systems, however, is often not achieved without challenges. The industry is grappling with fuel tanks in marine vessels and agricultural farming equipment which are failing quickly after transitioning to the alternative fuel. Extensive compatibility studies of biofuel with the polymers typically used in these fuel tanks, polyethylene and polyamide, have shown little evidence of degradative damage by chemical or microbial means. However, recent research within the group of the applicant is suggesting that biodiesel fuel may be an environmental stress cracking agent, which means it affects the organization of polymer chains rather than attacks them directly. This proposal seeks to understand the process by which biodiesel interacts with polyethylene, as the fuel seems to influence different grades of polyethylene differently from the more commonly studied detergents as stress cracking agents. The two year study will examine the ingress of biodiesel into different grades of polyethylene and characterize the organizational changes using mechanical, spectroscopic, X-ray, and acoustic techniques. The work will train a Masters and Doctoral level HQP in experimental and analysis skills, as well as develop communications and leadership skills. The outcome of the work will be transferred to the polymer industry to guide formulation improvements in fuel tanks such that they are more resistant to biodiesel. The research will benefit Canadian resin suppliers and tank & piping manufacturers, by reducing their liability to product failures. The work will further benefit the Canadian suppliers of biodiesel, which have seen some retraction of their markets recently due to inexplicable failures of tanks, especially in the marine sector.**