Abstract
The determination of the secure working life of polymeric materials is essential for their successful application in the packaging, medicine, engineering and consumer goods industries. An understanding of the chemical and physical changes in the structure of different polymers when exposed to long-term external factors (e.g., heat, ozone, oxygen, UV radiation, light radiation, chemical substances, water vapour) has provided a model for examining their ultimate lifetime by not only stabilization of the polymer, but also accelerating the degradation reactions. This paper presents an overview of the latest accounts on the impact of the most common environmental factors on the degradation processes of polymeric materials, and some examples of shelf life of rubber products are given. Additionally, the methods of lifetime prediction of degradable polymers using accelerated ageing tests and methods for extrapolation of data from induced thermal degradation are described: the Arrhenius model, time–temperature superposition (TTSP), the Williams–Landel–Ferry (WLF) model and 5 isoconversional approaches: Friedman’s, Ozawa–Flynn–Wall (OFW), the OFW method corrected by N. Sbirrazzuoli et al., the Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose (KAS) algorithm, and the advanced isoconversional method by S. Vyazovkin. Examples of applications in recent years are given.
Highlights
Nowadays, polymeric materials play a significant role in the development of modern civilization and are increasingly replacing traditional materials in almost every field, e.g., packaging, construction and in many other industries
Based on polymer ageing research experience and a literature review, this paper provides a new perspective on this subject
Seifi et al (2020) [70] presented the applications of thermal analysis techniques in research in the past decade (2010–2020). This was mainly related to the search for new thermally resistant polymers, nowadays, it concerns problems related to environmental protection, i.e., the search for polymeric materials with a specific lifetime [11,50,67,69,71]
Summary
Polymeric materials play a significant role in the development of modern civilization and are increasingly replacing traditional materials in almost every field, e.g., packaging, construction and in many other industries. Over the past several decades, the advance of plastics has made for economic development and brought huge benefits to our lives. The basic groups of application of polymeric materials in technology result from their specific functional properties. Most often they are used in the following areas: construction [2,3], medicine [4], agriculture [5], food [6], household [7], automotive [8,9] and chemical [10]. The application of plastic as packaging items is especially important, with around 40 million tonnes of plastic film produced from polyethylene alone [11]
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