Microcomposite comprising a nucleating component and a thermoplastic polymer
AssigneeAriel Scientific Innovations Ltd.
InventorTheodor STERN
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed are microcomposites comprising one or more microcomposite units where each microcomposite unit includes a nucleating component with a nucleating surface and a porous transcrystalline layer made of a crystallizable thermoplastic polymer covering the nucleating surface where the microcomposite is devoid of a bulk polymer matrix phase and, in some preferred embodiments is also substantially devoid of amorphous thermoplastic polymer in the pores of the transcrystalline layer, and methods of making the same.
Claims19
A microcomposite comprising one or more microcomposite units, wherein each microcomposite unit includes:
- at least one nucleating component having a nucleating surface;
- and
- nucleated from said nucleating surface, a porous transcrystalline layer of crystallizable thermoplastic polymer,
- wherein the microcomposite is substantially devoid of a bulk polymer matrix phase in the volume outside of said porous transcrystalline layer, and is devoid of any spherulitic structure.
A method of manufacturing a microcomposite, comprising:
- a. providing a melt that comprises a chosen crystallizable thermoplastic polymer, the melt being at a first temperature;
- b. providing at least one nucleating component having a nucleating surface;
- c. subsequent to ‘a’ and ‘b’, intimately contacting at least part of said nucleating surface of said at least one nucleating component with said melt;
- d. subsequent to ‘c’, lowering the temperature of said melt that is in intimate contact with said part of said nucleating surface to a second empirically-predetermined isothermal temperature, lower than said first temperature, at which a transcrystalline layer is nucleated and formed on said nucleating surface intimately contacting said melt and no crystallization occurs in the bulk matrix melt beyond said transcrystalline layer, thereby making an incipient microcomposite comprising said formed transcrystalline layer nucleated on said nucleating surface where pores of said transcrystalline layer are filled with an amorphous polymer phase and bulk polymer matrix melt is outside of said transcrystalline layer;
- e. subsequent to ‘d’, when said transcrystalline layer that is formed on portions of said nucleating surface is of a desired thickness and/or has stopped growing, immersing said nucleating surface, said formed transcrystalline layer and bulk polymer matrix melt that is adhered thereto in an extraction solvent suitable for extracting the chosen thermoplastic polymer, so as to remove substantially all of said adhered bulk polymer matrix melt from said outside of said formed transcrystalline layer of said incipient microcomposite, thereby making a microcomposite comprising at least one microcomposite unit that includes at least one nucleating component having a nucleating surface;
- and nucleated from said nucleating surface, a porous transcrystalline layer of crystallizable thermoplastic polymer, wherein said made microcomposite is substantially devoid of a bulk polymer matrix phase in the volume outside of said porous transcrystalline layer;
- and
- f. removing said microcomposite from immersion in said extraction solvent.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.