Method for physically foaming a polymer material and foamed article

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a method for physically foaming a polymer material and a foamed article. The method for physically foaming a polymer material comprises: (1) making a thermoplastic elastomer or a polyolefin material into a blank with an injector, an extruder, or a molding press; (2) subjecting the polyolefin blank to a crosslinking reaction to obtain a crosslinked polyolefin blank; (3) subjecting the thermoplastic elastomer blank or the crosslinked polyolefin blank to a high pressure impregnation with a supercritical fluid in an autoclave, then releasing the pressure to a normal pressure to obtain a supercritical fluid-impregnated blank; and (4) placing the supercritical fluid-impregnated blank into an end-product mold to perform an 1:1 in-mold foaming to obtain a finished foam article.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.