TY - JOUR
AU1 - Karlsson, Kristina
AU2 - Larsson, Emanuel
AU3 - Lorén, Niklas
AU4 - Stading, Mats
AU5 - Rigdahl, Mikael
AB - Plastics is a group of materials commonly encountered on a daily basis by many people. They have enabled rapid, low-cost manufacturing of products with complicated geometries and have contributed to the weight reduction of heavy components, especially when produced into a foamed structure. Despite the many advantages of plastics, some drawbacks such as the often fossil-based raw-material and the extensive littering of the material in nature, where it is not degraded for a very long time, needs to be dealt with. One way to address at least one of the issues could be to use polymers from nature instead of fossil-based ones. Here, a β-glucan concentrate originating from barley was investigated. The concentrate was processed into a foam by hot-melt extrusion, and the processing window was established. The effect of different blowing agents was also investigated. Water or a combination of water and sodium bicarbonate were used as blowing agents, the latter apparently giving a more uniform pore structure. The porous structure of the foamed materials was characterized mainly by using a combination of confocal laser scanning microscope and image analysis. The density of the samples was estimated and found to be in a similar range as some polyurethane foams. A set of 3D parameters were also quantified on two selected samples using X-ray microtomography in combination with image analysis, where it was indicated that the porous structure had a pre-determined direction, which followed the direction of the extrusion process.
TI - Extrusion Parameters for Foaming of a β-Glucan Concentrate
JF - Journal of Polymers and the Environment
DO - 10.1007/s10924-019-01412-3
DA - 2019-03-11
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/springer-journals/extrusion-parameters-for-foaming-of-a-glucan-concentrate-N0ZLY8ehRK
SP - 1167
EP - 1177
VL - 27
IS - 6
DP - DeepDyve
ER -