Recently we started two new projects within the DPI Polyolefins programme.
HITT_Feasibility (#858)
Ultra-high molar mass and long chain branched polyolefins possess exceptional properties of great industrial interest. However, branching distributions and low solubility make their structural analysis challenging. To unfold their application potential, HITT develops high temperature thermal field flow fractionation (HT-ThFFF) for separation of polyolefins with ultra-high molar masses. The HT-ThFFF approach is applied on libraries of relevant industrial polymers provided by the industrial partners. This project will open up the opportunity to understand microstructure and branching distributions in polyolefins due to separation based on thermophoretic properties.
GoLBraPol (#855)
The aim of the Project GoLBraPol is to characterise and determine the relations between molecular architecture, rheological and processing properties of SLCB-POs by using milligram size amounts of material. To this end, different experimental approaches will be combined to setup a complete rheological fingerprint of the sparsely long branches with respect to the linear chain counterpart. The expected result will be a full characterisation of the SLCB Polyolefins, in terms of both rheology and processing and a deeper understanding of the relations between this peculiar type of molecular architecture and the final properties of the polymer.