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Organoclay Dispersion In Linear Low-Density Polyethylene And Maleated Linear Low-Density Polyethylene Via Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Processing, Matthew J. Factor

Doctoral Dissertations

"Research into polymer-clay nanocomposites (PCN's) has been ongoing for decades as a result of the property enhancements offered by clay. To fully exploit these property enhancements, organically modified clays (organoclays) are utilized to promote clay delamination by reducing the disparity between the hydrophilicity of the clay and the hydrophobicity of the highly used polyolefin polymer. Since the organic modification of organoclays can degrade at temperatures typical to many polymers during melt-mix processing, this work utilizes the low-temperature processing fluid supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) to disperse an organoclay into the highly used polymer LLDPE and ascertains the associated processing conditions for …