High porosity polyethylene aerogels
Journal Title: Polyolefins Journal - Year 2015, Vol 2, Issue 1
Abstract
Monolithic aerogels of high molecular weight polyethylene (Mw= 3x106- 6x106 g/mol) have been prepared by solvent extraction with supercritical carbon dioxide from thermoreversible gels prepared in decalin. These low density and highly porous aerogels present an apparent porosity up to 90%. The aerogel morphology observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is characterized by spherulitic structures being interconnected by fibers. X-ray diffraction experiments show that PE aerogels are highly crystalline with a degree of crystallinity of c.a. 80% and PE chains being packed into the typical orthorombic unit cell. Combined SEM and N2 sorption investigations show that PE aerogels are essentially macroporous with a small amount of mesopores. The oil-sorption performance of polyethylene aerogels has been also evaluated in this study in order to assess a possible use of these materials for oil spillage recovery and results show that aerogel macropores allow a very fast sorption kinetics with a 100% oil weight uptake obtained in less than 1 minute.
Authors and Affiliations
Christophe Daniel, Simona Longo, Gaetano Guerra
Keywords
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- EP ID EP283083
- DOI 10.22063/POJ.2015.1113
- Views 153
- Downloads 0
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