Abstract
A simple and feasible method is proposed to fabricate thermoplastic reticulated foams, which are commercially valuable materials applied in the areas of environmental protection, impact absorption, and tissue engineering. The key to achieving the evolution from open‐cell (OC) foam to reticulated foam is to match the melt strength of the polymer with the driving force of the cell growth. Therefore, herein, a small amount of triglycidyl isocyanurate (TGIC) containing three epoxy groups reacts with linear polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) to form a branched structure to finely control the melt strength. The crystallization temperature and crystallization rate decrease with the formation of branched PBT. Based on these findings, a cooling batch foaming method is designed and applied at different foaming pressures to prepare reticulated foams. As the TGIC content decreases from 0.2 to 0.05 phr, closed cells, conventional OCs, reticulated cells, and collapsed cells are observed in turn. Reticulated PBT foams with an OC content of 91.1% and a volume expansion ratio (VER) of 17.5 are formed in the PBT/TGIC0.15 sample in optimum foaming conditions. In addition, conventional OC foams with an OC content of 95.1% and VER of 34.3 are also obtained in PBT/TGIC0.2 sample.
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