Measuring Thermal Properties of Recycled Carbon Composites

这一研究工具仪器将使我们能够探索新的方法来检测含碳聚合物复合材料的热传递和阻燃性测量。全球正在努力研究如何回收聚合物材料，同时在聚合物复合材料中使用碳，以制造重量更轻、性能更好的材料。在北美，只有大约9%的塑料被回收，各种方法正在调查中。各种各样的回收方法，如热解，将产生未知质量的碳。回收已经成为北美公司的一个巨大的研究挑战，因为以前用过的塑料被送到中国那里处理。中国在2018年改变了他们的政策，这导致需要自己来应对这一挑战。同样，将碳材料集成到聚合物体系中的方法也有多种。碳具有各种同素异形体，如单壁和多壁碳纳米管、石墨烯、碳量子点、石墨、钻石和无定形碳。由于碳的丰富，以及它提供轻质材料的能力，它的应用已经集成到各种形式的现代领域，特别是汽车、火车、飞机、桥梁等结构和混凝土。对于在原始材料和回收材料中使用低成本和可再生碳的这些优势，对碳类型/质量如何控制热传递以及它是提供绝缘材料还是导电材料的潜在理解在很大程度上是未知的。我们的研究项目考察了如何使用绿色溶剂将碳整合到回收材料或聚合物复合材料中，以及所需的碳的质量。例如，超临界流体或离子液体等绿色生物基溶剂既可用于回收过程，也可用于加强碳整合。例如，泡沫塑料是用超临界二氧化碳生产的，其中碳的类型质量(生物质、石墨烯或石墨)是根据剥离和渗滤阈值进行检查的。根据含碳复合材料的2D或3D结构，可以形成绝缘或导电材料。由于缺乏对传热学或易燃性的了解，这些碳材料的广泛采用阻碍了工业的发展。了解易燃性和热传递要求对于最终用户应用至关重要。几名研究生正在我们的实验室从事工业主题的项目，既产生碳，又融入复合材料，探索碳的类型以及潜在的化学和物理。这两种研究工具都将在我们的先进材料中心使用，并在整个大学和该领域被学术界和工业界同行广泛采用。

This Research Tool Instrument will enable us to explore new methods for examining carbon containing polymer composites for their heat-transfer and anti-flammability measurements. A global effort is underway on how to recycle polymer materials while also using carbon in polymer composites to make lighter weight and better performing materials. Only around 9% of plastics are recycled in North America, with a diversity of approaches being investigated. A variety of these recycling approaches such as pyrolysis will create carbon of unknown quality. Recycling has become a tremendous research challenge for North American companies as previously used plastics were sent to China for disposal.  China in 2018 changed their policy which has resulted in a need to address this challenge ourselves. Similarly, a variety of approaches are used for integrating carbonaceous materials into polymeric systems.  Carbon has a variety of allotropes  such as single and multi-wall carbon nanotubes, graphene, carbon quantum-dots, graphite, diamonds and amorphous carbon.  Due to the abundance of carbon, and its ability to provide low weight materials, its applications have been integrated into all forms of modern areas, particularly automobiles, trains, airplanes, structures such as bridges and integration into concrete. Towards these advantages of using low cost and renewable carbon into both virgin and recycled materials, the underlying understanding of how the carbon type/quality can control heat transfer and whether it provides insulating or conductive materials is largely unexplored. Our research program examines how green solvents can be used to integrate carbon into recycled materials or polymer composites and the quality of carbon required. For example green biobased solvents such as supercritical fluids or ionic liquids can be used in both the recycling process and  enhancing carbon integration. For example, foams are being produced using supercritical carbon dioxide, where the type quality of carbon (biomass derived, graphene or graphite) is examined on exfoliation and percolation threshold. Depending on the 2D or 3D structure of the carbon containing composite, either insulating or conductive materials can be formed. Industry has been held back by wider adoption of these carbon materials due to a lack of understanding of heat transfer or flammability. Understanding the flammability and heat transfer requirements is critical for the end-use application. Several graduate students are working on industrial themed projects in our lab for both generating carbon and integrating into composites, exploring the type of carbon and underlying chemistry and physics. Both of these research tools with be used in our Advanced Material Centre for wide adoption throughout our University and area by both academic and industrial colleagues.