Twin screw extruder for the facile fabrication of novel functional polymeric and composite materials

具有前所未有的性能的新材料通常是通过选择性地混合具有互补的、有时是对比的性能的组分来生产的。例如，不相容聚合物的混合物经常用于汽车行业，该行业要求在抗冲击性、韧性、刚性和可漆性之间实现最佳平衡。含有功能无机粒子的聚合物复合材料可以表现出导电或磁敏行为，这是非传统电子应用所需的机械和电磁性能的组合。混合了几个混合组分后获得的材料特性在很大程度上取决于这些组分在复合材料中的分布情况。复合材料的形态和相分布可以通过几个工艺参数来调节。双螺杆挤出机(TSE)能够连续生产高度均匀的聚合物基多组分材料，具有精度和重复性。所申请的TSE将主要支持UofA聚合物集团，这是一个活跃的联盟，聚集了校园内20多名教职员工和150多名研究生，他们的研究领域涵盖聚合物科学和工程的整个范围，即聚合物合成、聚合反应工程、理论/建模、加工、表征和器件制造。然而，聚合物小组一直受到这样一个事实的困扰，即该大学出人意料地没有研究型聚合物加工设备。拟议中的TSE将使聚合物集团受益匪浅，目前该集团正致力于建立应用高分子工程中心(Come)，这是一个拟议的面向行业的学术研究中心，旨在将加拿大定位为世界顶尖的石油产品，应用范围广泛。申请的TSE也将向阿尔伯塔大学的所有研究人员开放。

Novel materials with unprecedented properties are often produced by the selective blending of components with complimentary, and sometimes contrasting, properties. For example, blends of immiscible polymers are frequently used in the automotive industry where an optimal balance of impact resistance, toughness, stiffness and paintability is demanded. Polymer composites containing functional inorganic particles can exhibit electrically conducting or magnetically susceptible behaviours, a combination of desirable mechanical and electromagnetic properties for nonconventional electronic applications. The material properties obtained after mixing several blend components depend heavily on how these components are distributed within the composite. Composite morphology and phase distribution can be regulated by several processing parameters. Twin-screw extruders (TSE) enable the continuous production of highly uniform polymer-based multicomponent materials with precision and reproducibility. The requested TSE will primarily support the UofA Polymer Group, an active consortium gathering over 20 faculty members and over 150 graduate students across the campus, where their research areas span the whole range of polymer science and engineering, namely polymer synthesis, polymerization reaction engineering, theory/modelling, processing, characterization, and device fabrication. However, the polymer group has been suffering with the fact that there is surprisingly no research-type polymer processing equipment in the university. The proposed TSE can profoundly benefit the Polymer Group, currently working towards the establishment of the Centre for Applied Macromolecular Engineering (CAME), a proposed industry oriented academic research centre with a vision to locate Canada to the top of the world for petroleum products in a wide range of applications. The requested TSE will also be open to all researchers at the University of Alberta.