Potential of utilizing immiscible polymer blends as porous materials

The goal of this research was to examine the ability of commodity polymer blends to be used as low cost porous materials as a replacement for costly porous materials such as activated carbon. Three blend systems were prepared based on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polystyrene (PS) as major phases and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and PS as minor phases. All the blend systems were prepared at 10 wt% of the minor phase with melt blending method using conventional polymer processing equipment. In order to enhance the porosity of the prepared blends, appropriate staining agent was applied to partially remove the minor phase out of the prepared blend samples. PV was stained with water while PS was stained with ethyl acetate (EAC). It was seen that, by the result of this study, the satined blend system of HDPE/PVA showed best surface and mechanical properties. Amount of adsorbed nitrogen was above 18 cm(3) g(-1) at a relative pressure of one for the stained HDPE/PVA and PS/PVA. This may introduce a cost effective polymer blend material that may be used for moisture or gas storage.