Abstract: Well-defined cellular structure of isotactic polypropylene (PP) foams with outstanding properties were prepared via supercritical carbon dio-xide (scCO2) foaming of iPP blended with a small amount of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) micropowder. PP/PTFE blend samples with PTFE contents of 1.0wt%, 5.0wt% and 10.0wt% were prepared using a regular co-rotating two-screw extruder and then the samples were foamed using scCO2 as the physical blowing agent in a batch process. The results showed that the PTFE micropowder could be transformed into a fiber with a certain aspect ratio and entangled with each other to form a network structure after extrusion, which greatly increased the melt strength of PP/PTFE. Well-structured cell morphology of PP/PTFE foam was obtained. The cell size decreased from 87 μm to 31 μm as the loading of PTFE increasing and the cell density of PP/PTFE(10.0%) foam reached 7.4×108 cells/cm3, which was more than 10 times higher as compared to the neat PP foam. In addition, the PTFE particles, and the growth of nucleated small cells in the multiple-phase system, were responsible for the enhanced heterogeneous nucleation of PP foaming with good cellular structure during the foaming process. Compared to the neat PP foam, PP/PTFE foams showed significantly improved tensile strength and tensile strain. Due to the remarkable decrease in cell size and increase in cell density, which increased from 6 MPa to 11 MPa and from 107% to 230%, respectively.
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