Thesis supervisor: Alfréd Kállay-Menyhárd
belső konzulens: János Móczó
Location of studies (in Hungarian): BME Department of Physical Chemistry and Materials Science Abbreviation of location of studies: BME
Description of the research topic:
The properties of semicrystalline polymers are determined by their complex supermolecular structure, thus the properties can be manipulated by targeted modification of the crystalline structure. Isotactic polypropylene (iPP) is a good example for this, because the crystalline structure of iPP and consequently its properties is usually modified by efficient nucleating agents in the industrial practice nowadays. This is a cost effective way for production of cheap polymer with advantageous properties for various application fields, even for those fields where the polymer could not be applied without modification. In the latest decade iPP is applied for example as bumper material in the car industry and substitute acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) or iPP replaced polycarbonate in the field of baby bottles as well. In both cases iPP is a cheaper material, which could compete the engineering polymer with appropriate modification of crystalline structure. Our Laboratory has long term experience in this field and all the necessary equipment are available for this research. In addition the industrial support and background is strong, thus PhD students can participate real industrial developments and research projects. The main goal of this work is to reveal general qualitative correlations between the supermolecular structure and properties of polymers with special attention to the optical and mechanical properties. These two key properties have crucial importance from industrial point of view and most of the developments target the improvement of stiffness and optical transparency of the material. Impact resistance is also a very important property, but it is changing oppositely with stiffness and the improvement of both properties simultaneously is difficult if possible at all. iPP is applied mostly on this field thus we are focusing on this material as well, although the general correlations estimated in this research will be tested on other semicrystalline polymers like polyamide, poly(lactic-acid) and polyethylene-terephthalate as well. Since the demand for efficient nucleating agent promoting unique properties is continuously increasing recently, we are planning the development of nucleating agents as well, which might have potential industrial application in the future.