Method for producing porous material
AssigneeVertera, Inc.
InventorsWei-Hsiang Chang, Stephen Lee Laffoon, Christopher S. D. Lee, David Lee Safranski
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for making a polymer with a porous layer from a solid piece of polymer is disclosed. In various embodiments, the method includes heating a surface of a solid piece of polymer to a processing temperature below a melting point of the polymer and holding the processing temperature while displacing a porogen layer through the surface of the polymer to create a matrix layer of the solid polymer body comprising the polymer and the porogen layer. In at least one embodiment, the method also includes removing at least a portion of the layer of porogen from the matrix layer to create a porous layer of the solid piece of polymer.
Claims6
A method for forming a solid polymer body with pores distributed through at least a portion of the solid, the method comprising:
- placing a surface of a solid piece of polyetheretherketone (PEEK) in contact with a portion of a plurality of sodium chloride grain layers;
- heating the surface of the solid piece of PEEK to a processing temperature of about 305 to 342 degrees Celsius;
- holding the processing temperature of the surface of the solid piece of PEEK for a processing period of time of between about twenty and forty minutes to create a viscous layer of PEEK of the solid piece of PEEK;
- displacing at least the portion of the plurality of sodium chloride grain layers through the viscous layer of the solid piece of PEEK, creating a matrix layer of PEEK and sodium chloride grains;
- and
- leaching one or more of the sodium chloride grains of the plurality of sodium chloride grain layers and cooling the surface of the solid piece of PEEK to form a solid polymer with a porous layer, wherein a shear strength of the porous layer increases substantially linearly with the processing period of time.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.