Lightweight and strong gelling agent-reinforced injection-molded polypropylene composite foams fabricated using low-pressure CO2 as the foaming agent

Lightweight and strong polymeric foams show high potential application in alleviating the global energy crisis due to their capability of reducing material resource requirements as well decreasing consumption. However, it is inevitably difficult produce lightweight polymers with satisfactory mechanical properties. Herein, we report an innovative method high-performance polypropylene (PP) by combining a sorbitol gelling agent newly developed low-pressure microcellular injection molding (MIM) technique. Carbon dioxide (CO2) at ultralow pressure 5 MPa used foaming MIM process. The addition 1,3:2,4-bis-O-(4-methyl benzylidene)-D-sorbitol (MDBS), which generates situ network structure, notably enhances crystallization, viscoelasticity melt strength PP, resulting PP well-defined cellular structures. Compared neat foams, added leads four orders magnitude increase cell density that have size approximately 8.4 μm. Remarkably, tensile toughness composite foam are 1000 % 150 higher than those foam, respectively. These results demonstrate ductility can be obtained via scalable novel FIM technique, shows promising future many applications, such automotive, construction electrical components.