Solid-State Microcellular Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene Foams

Abstract

Microcellular ABS foams are a novel family of materials with the potential to significantly reduce material costs in a number of applications that currently use solid polymer. ABS foams were produced using carbon dioxide in a solid-state process. Solubility and diffusivity of CO₂ in ABS was measured, and the latter was found to depend significantly on the gas concentration. The useful range of process-space for ABS-CO₂ was characterized. Closed cell ABS foams were produced with densities ranging from 1.03 g/cm³ (almost completely solid) to 0.09 g/cm³. It was determined that there are many different processing conditions that can produce microcellular ABS foams that have the same density. The cell nucleation density was of the order of 10¹¹ cells per cm³, and the average cell sizes observed ranged from 0.5 μm to 5.6 μm.

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