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Metathesis
“A boon to organic synthetic chemists, olefin metathesis also promises cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient industrial processes” – A. Maureen Rouhi, C&EN Washington
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pDCPD |
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Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) is a low cost, readily available monomer byproduct of petrochemical production. Materia’s proprietary ruthenium catalyst system is used to polymerize and cross-link this monomer.
Prometa® 2500, Materia’s developmental RIM formulation of toughened pDCPD, provides exceptional toughness, impact resistance, and corrosion resistance (see Prometa® 2500 data sheet).
The photo below demonstrates the impact resistance achieved in a ballistic application investigation.
High velocity rounds fired into a block of Materia's pDCPD
pDCPD has also low viscosity and is easily processable into many high value downstream products using molding techniques such as reaction injection molding (RIM), resin transfer molding (RTM), pultrusion, centrifugal casting, filament winding, and rotomolding. The unfilled resins are transparent, light yellow to amber, and can be dyed, pigmented, filled, painted, and machined. Mineral and metal filled composite materials display many interesting characteristics.
Glass and carbon fiber composites can be easily fabricated utilizing Materia’s low-viscosity DCPD resin technology. Interestingly, the inherent toughness of the matrix resin translates into very tough, dense and damage tolerant composites. The picture below compares two woven glass fiber composites – the first with a formulation optimized for wet-out and the second with a non-optimized formulation.
Laminated glass composites (12-ply) with and without glass adhesion promoters
Materia's pDCPD resin system can also be used in conjunction with glass or ceramic microspheres to produce high quality syntactic foam products. Materia has investigated pDCPD foams for use as core materials in oil & gas, marine, aerospace, and construction applications.
pDCPD based foams are exceptionally durable and have low defect content. While foams made with glass microspheres are typically 10-20% lower in density than foams from other resin systems, pDCPD foams with densities as low as 7 lb/ft3 can be produced using thermoplastic microspheres. The materials display mechanical properties similar to natural cork and maintain excellent acoustical and vibrational dampening properties.
Poly-DCPD foams
A last attribute to these resin systems is their low dielectric constant and low moisture uptake, which makes them ideal for electric and semiconductor applications.
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