Improving the cellular morphology in high performance thermoplastics foams through blending

High performance thermoplastic blends based on Poly(ethylene naphthalate)/Poly(ether sulfone) polymers were prepared by melt compounding to study the correlations between composition, morphologies and cellular structure after foaming. Blends were employed to develop high performance foams with controlled cellular morphology by using CO2 as foaming agent. The role of composition, morphology and processing conditions on the dynamic-mechanical properties of solid blends and on the micro- and nano-cellular structures of their foams was analized. Dispersed PES both extended the service temperature and acted as gas reservoir in PEN based blends, lowering the foam density with respect to neat PEN. The dispersion of PEN drops in PES extended towards lower temperatures the PES foamability, allowing the nucleation and growth of bubbles and reducing the foam density. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.