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Special Issue "Degradation and Stabilization of Polymer Systems: Recent Advances"

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A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Analysis and Characterization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2020) | Viewed by 7393

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Giulio Malucelli

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Guest Editor

Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
Interests: biomacromolecules; flame retardance; structure-property relationships; thermal degradation; polymer (nano)composites; biopolymers
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to present recent advances on the degradation and stabilization of polymer systems and their micro- and nanocomposites. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

Advances in photodegradation and photo-oxidation of polymer and polymer composites;
Advances in thermal degradation of polymer and polymer composites;
New flame retardants for polymers and polymer composites;
New bio-based strategies for enhancing the thermal, photo-oxidative, and fire resistance of polymer and polymer composites;

New insights in modeling the degradation of polymers and polymer composites.

Prof. Giulio Malucelli
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

thermal stability
photo-oxidation
thermal degradation
polymer composites
bio-based additives
flame retardants
modeling

Related Special Issues

Assessment of the Ageing and Durability of Polymers in Polymers (194 articles)
Degradation and Stabilization of Polymer Systems: Recent Advances in Polymers (24 articles)

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

Open AccessArticle

Effect of Cyclotriphosphazene-Based Curing Agents on the Flame Resistance of Epoxy Resins

and

Polymers 2021, 13(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13010008 - 22 Dec 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2238

Abstract

Epoxy resins are characterized by excellent properties such as chemical resistance, shape stability, hardness and heat resistance, but they present low flame resistance. In this work, the synthesized derivatives, namely hexacyclohexylamino-cyclotriphosphazene (HCACTP) and novel diaminotetracyclohexylamino-cyclotriphosphazene (DTCATP), were applied as curing agents for halogen-free flame retarding epoxy materials. The thermal properties and combustion behavior of the cured epoxy resins were investigated. The obtained results revealed that the application of both derivatives significantly increased flame resistance. The epoxy resins cured with HCACTP and DTCATP exhibited lower total heat release together with lower total smoke production compared to the epoxy materials based on conventional curing agents (dipropylenetriamine and ethylenediamine). Comparing both derivatives, the HCACTP-cured epoxy resin was found to provide a higher flame resistance. The designed novel class of epoxy materials may be used for the preparation of materials with improved flame resistance properties in terms of flame spreading and smoke inhibition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Degradation and Stabilization of Polymer Systems: Recent Advances)

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Open AccessArticle

Flax/PP and Flax/PLA Thermoplastic Composites: Influence of Fire Retardants on the Individual Components

Baljinder K. Kandola

Wiwat Pornwannachai

and

John Russell Ebdon

Polymers 2020, 12(11), 2452; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12112452 - 23 Oct 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2282

Abstract

This study is based on previously reported reaction to fire properties of flax fibre-reinforced polymeric (polypropylene, PP and polylactic acid, PLA) composites, prepared by pre-treating the fabrics with different fire retardants (FRs) prior to composite preparation. It was observed that while all of these treatments were very effective in flax/PLA in terms of achieving a V-0 rating in a UL-94 test, only an organophosphonate FR was capable of achieving a V-0 rating for flax/PP. However, all fire-retardant treatments impaired the mechanical properties of the composites; the reduction was more in flax/PLA compared to flax/PP composites. To understand these effects further, here thermal analysis and pyrolysis combustion flow calorimetry of the composites and each component separately treated with FRs have been conducted and the results analysed in terms of the effect on each component so as to observe any interaction between the different components. The results indicated that in flax/PLA composites, the water released during FR catalysed dehydration-decomposition of flax may hydrolyse PLA, changing decomposition pathway of PLA to produce less flammable volatile, hence resulting in reduced flammability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Degradation and Stabilization of Polymer Systems: Recent Advances)

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Open AccessArticle

Role of Organo-Modifier and Metal Impurities of Commercial Nanoclays in the Photo- and Thermo-Oxidation of Polyamide 11 Nanocomposites

Martina Ussia

Giusy Curcuruto

Daniela Zampino

Nadka Tzankova Dintcheva

Giovanni Filippone

Raniero Mendichi

and

Sabrina Carola Carroccio

Polymers 2020, 12(5), 1034; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym12051034 - 02 May 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2166

Abstract

The photo-oxidative degradation processes of bio-based PA11 nanocomposites containing montmorillonite (MMT) and the organo-modified Cloisite^®30B were investigated to discriminate the influence of organo-modified components on the polymer durability. Indeed, despite the extensive studies reported, there are still ambiguous points to be clarified from the chemical point of view. To this aim, UV-aged materials were analyzed by Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC), Inductively Coupled Plasma–Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). This enabled determining changes in both chemical structure and Molar Masses (MMs) induced by light, heat and oxygen exposure. The addition of organo-modified nanoclays strongly affected the PA11 light durability, triggering the macromolecular chains scission due to the typical αH, Norrish I and II mechanisms. However, the main contribution in boosting the photo-oxidative degradation is induced by iron impurities contained into the clays. Conversely, thermo-oxidation process performed at 215 °C was unambiguously affected by the presence of the organo-modifiers, whose presence determined an enhancement of crosslinking reactions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Degradation and Stabilization of Polymer Systems: Recent Advances)

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Special Issue "Degradation and Stabilization of Polymer Systems: Recent Advances"

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