Abstract
Publisher Summary Chaotic advection-based processing of plastics is a new plastics processing technology that offers opportunities to enhance physical properties, impart functionalities, or create decorative patterns in extrusions. It can be used with existing polymer resins and is well suited to melt processing of shear sensitive materials. Droplet dispersions or solid particle mixtures can also be produced. Both miscible and immiscible polymer combinations can be used although structural outcomes differ. Structured plastics can be extruded that can contain, for example, thousands of layers, spongelike assemblies, interconnected layers, percolating networks, ribbons, abundant submicron fibers, or oriented particles. Chaotic advection is a subject of fluid mechanics that denotes the chaotic movements of passive particles in response to even simple flowfields. Because of chaotic advection, it is now understood that complex particle motions in fluids do not require complex flow fields. Even where discrete particles do not exist in a polymer melt, this understanding is useful because small melt domains move in a similar fashion. Simple flow fields allow controllable formation in melts of structures that can have both fine-scale features while also being physically expansive. For example, two polymer components can be arranged into thousands of thin alternating layers or into a blend consisting of long, submicron fibers.
Published Version
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