Thermoplastic



A thermoplastic is a polypropylene.

Temperature dependence

Thermoplastics are elastic and flexible above a viscosity gradually decreases without any distinct phase change.

Thermoplastics can go through melting/freezing cycles repeatedly and the fact that they can be reshaped upon reheating gives them their name. This quality makes thermoplastics recyclable. The processes required for recycling vary with the thermoplastic. The plastics used for pop bottles are a common example of thermoplastics that can be and are widely recycled. Animal horn, made of the protein α-keratin, softens on heating, is somewhat reshapable, and may be regarded as a natural, quasi-thermoplastic material.

Some thermoplastics normally do not crystallize: they are termed "amorphous" plastics and are useful at temperatures below the Tg. They are frequently used in applications where clarity is important. Some typical examples of amorphous thermoplastics are PC. Generally, amorphous thermoplastics are less chemically resistant and can be subject to stress cracking. Thermoplastics will crystallize to a certain extent and are called "semi-crystalline" for this reason. Typical semi-crystalline thermoplastics are PE, PP, PBT and PET. The speed and extent to which crystallization can occur depends in part on the flexibility of the polymer chain. Semi-crystalline thermoplastics are more resistant to solvents and other chemicals. If the crystallites are larger than the wavelength of light, the thermoplastic is hazy or opaque. Semi-crystalline thermoplastics become less brittle above Tg. If a plastic with otherwise desirable properties has too high a Tg, it can often be lowered by adding a low-molecular-weight plastic automobile parts often cracked in cold winter weather. Another method of lowering Tg (or raising Tm) is to incorporate the original plastic into a copolymer, as with graft copolymers of polystyrene, or into a composite material. Lowering Tg is not the only way to reduce brittleness. Drawing (and similar processes that stretch or orient the molecules) or increasing the length of the polymer chains also decrease brittleness.

Although modestly vulcanized natural and synthetic rubbers are stretchy, they are thermoplastic elastomers have become available!

List of thermoplastics

See also

 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Thermoplastic". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.