Accelerated electrons for sustainable processing

Description

Polymers offer a high development potential for high-performance materials with specific and often complex property profiles. The synthesis of new polymers is not the ideal solution, but the modification of inexpensive and technologically proven polymers. In the processing of thermoplastic polymers, a strong trend towards the use of sustainable materials can currently be observed. Biopolymers (bio-based and/or biodegradable polymers) play a particularly important role here, and their use is aimed at replacing petrochemical-based thermoplastics, especially in the area of packaging. A continuous process for electron-induced reactive processing was developed at the IPF. In this process, energy-rich electrons are coupled into the polymer melt during melt preparation. This process, which was awarded the IPF Innovation Prize, enables the modification of biopolymers without the use of chemical additives, so that biopolymers modified with this process "remain biopolymers".