Measuring Thermal Properties of Recycled Carbon Composites

该研究工具仪器将使我们能够探索检测含碳聚合物复合材料的传热和抗可燃性测量的新方法。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来制造重量更轻、性能更好的材料。在北美，只有大约9%的塑料被回收利用，人们正在研究各种各样的方法。各种回收方法，如热解，将产生质量未知的碳。由于以前用过的塑料被送往中国处理，回收已经成为北美公司研究的一个巨大挑战。中国在2018年改变了政策，因此需要我们自己来应对这一挑战。同样，将含碳材料整合到聚合物体系中的方法也多种多样。碳具有多种同素异形体，如单壁和多壁碳纳米管、石墨烯、碳量子点、石墨、金刚石和非晶碳。由于碳的丰富，以及它提供低重量材料的能力，它的应用已经融入到各种形式的现代领域，特别是汽车、火车、飞机、桥梁等结构，并融入混凝土中。对于将低成本和可再生碳用于原始材料和回收材料的这些优势，对碳类型/质量如何控制传热以及它是否提供绝缘或导电材料的潜在理解在很大程度上尚未探索。我们的研究项目研究如何使用绿色溶剂将碳整合到可回收材料或聚合物复合材料中，以及所需碳的质量。例如，超临界流体或离子液体等绿色生物基溶剂可用于回收过程和增强碳整合。例如，使用超临界二氧化碳生产泡沫，其中碳（生物质衍生的，石墨烯或石墨）的类型质量通过剥落和渗透阈值进行检查。根据含碳复合材料的二维或三维结构，可以形成绝缘或导电材料。由于缺乏对传热或可燃性的理解，工业被广泛采用这些碳材料所阻碍。了解可燃性和传热要求对最终用途应用至关重要。一些研究生正在我们的实验室从事工业主题的项目，包括产生碳和将其整合到复合材料中，探索碳的类型以及潜在的化学和物理。这两种研究工具将在我们的先进材料中心广泛使用，并在整个大学和地区被学术界和工业界的同事广泛采用。

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.