Interfacial Phenomena in Multi-Micro-/Nanolayered Polymer Coextrusion: A Review of Fundamental and Engineering Aspects

Abstract

The multilayer coextrusion process is known to be a reliable technique for the continuous fabrication of high-performance micro-/nanolayered polymeric products. Using laminar flow conditions to combine polymer pairs, one can produce multilayer films and composites with a large number of interfaces at the polymer-polymer boundary. Interfacial phenomena, including interlayer diffusion, interlayer reaction, interfacial instabilities, and interfacial geometrical confinement, are always present during multilayer coextrusion depending on the processed polymers. They are critical in defining the microstructural development and resulting macroscopic properties of multilayered products. This paper, therefore, presents a comprehensive review of these interfacial phenomena and illustrates systematically how these phenomena develop and influence the resulting physicochemical properties. This review will promote the understanding of interfacial evolution in the micro-/nanolayer coextrusion process while enabling the better control of the microstructure and end use properties.

A Journey from Processing to Recycling of Multilayer Waste Films: A Review of Main Challenges and Prospects

“…Over the last five decades, continued research and development in the academic and industry domains allowed a continual growth and expansion of the micro and nanolayered film coextrusion technology [79] to commercial relevancy. Meanwhile, many interfacial and rheological phenomenon during the co-extrusion and forced assembly are also deeply studied [80][81][82][83]. Nearly 500 issued patents for composition of micro or nanolayered materials applications have been published between 2000 and 2010 [84].…”

“…These layers are ordered and distributed within the block using a design, which was inspired from vein splitting. Then, the ordered thousand-layer polymer melts flows, and exits the feedblock directly into the die in order to form the product film or sheet [81,84].…”

“…As shown in Figure 10, the final number of layers in the polymer film is determined as the function of a number of layer multiplication dies, which are placed in series between the feedblock and final film or sheet exit dies. The number of layers of the film obtained can be calculated as a function of the number of layers in the feedblock and the number of layer multiplying dies [78,81,84]. Figure 11 displays an example of nanolayer film coextrusion.…”

“…and the number of layer multiplying dies [78,81,84]. Figure 11 displays an example of nanolayer film coextrusion.…”

Rheology and Processing of Polymers

“…The following keywords cover all related topics: [1] reviewed interfacial phenomena in multi-micro/nanolayered polymer coextrusion from fundamental and engineering aspects. Different from traditional approaches, such as layer-by-layer assembly and spin coating which suffer from low productivity, multilayer coextrusion processing is a top-down approach able to industrially manufacture multilayered films.…”