Process of making a porous PTFE membrane

Abstract

A fine powder of polytetrafluoroethylene is mixed with a liquid lubricant, and the mixture is molded into an unsintered sheet by at least one of an extrusion method and a rolling method. The liquid lubricant is removed from the sheet by at least one of a heating method and an extrusion method. This sheet-form molding is stretched in the machine direction to produce a sheet-form polytetrafluoroethylene molding which, upon analysis with a differential scanning calorimeter, gives a crystal fusion curve having an endothermic peak in the temperature range of 345.+-.5 .degree. C. and which has a degree of crystallization of from 0.1 to 0.85 and a specific gravity of 1.4 or lower. The molding is then stretched in the transverse direction to produce a porous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane. The process is effective in producing, with good reproducibility, a useful porous PTFE membrane which has a high collection efficiency and a low pressure loss and is reduced in the leakage of coarse particles.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.