A thorough, up-to-date examination of the science and practical application of superabsorbent polymers.

Modern Superabsorbent Polymer Technology takes a comprehensive look at the structure, properties, and uses of superabsorbent polymers. Prepared by editors with over 20 years of experience in the field, it offers a unified approach to polymer science technologies and examines the key interrelationships between structure, properties, behavior, and applications.

This book draws on the best and most relevant scientific papers from academia and industry, as well as numerous patents and patent applications. The result is a compact, centralized source of information on superabsorbent polymers that no polymer or chemical engineer will want to be without.

Discusses synthetic chemistry and the effects of synthesis on the structure of superabsorbent polymers

• Describes and compares industrial practices of the major manufacturers of superabsorbent polymers
• Features analytical methods for evaluation of the properties and behavior of superabsorbent polymers
• Explores structural and property relationships of crosslinked super-absorbent polymers
• Surveys new superabsorbent polymer forms and types—including fibers, foams, and biodegradable superabsorbents
• Covers current and emerging applications in personal care products, horticulture, construction, and other areas.

Thermodynamics is an indispensable tool for developing a large and growing fraction of new polymers and polymer blends.
These two volumes show the researcher how thermodynamics can be used to rank polymer pairs in order of immiscibility, including the search for suitable chemical structure of compatibilizers.
Because of the great current commercial interest in this most dynamic sector of the polymer industry, there is high interest in studying their physical and mechanical properties, their structures, and the processes of their formation and manufacture.
These Books are dedicated to Analysis of the Thermodynamics of Polymer Blends. Thermodynamic behavior of blends determines the compatibility of the components, their morphological features, rheological behavior, and microphase structures. As a result, the most important physical and mechanical characteristics of blends can be identified.

Topics covered in this text include: structural aspects of polymers; molecular mobility in amorphous solid polymers; non-elastic deformation of solid amorphous polymers; mechanical experiments; interpretation of results; physical ageing of amorphous polymers; and glass transition.

Poled polymers doped with nonlinear optically active chromophores combine the large second order nonlinearity of the dopant dye molecules with the optical quality of the polymer. The material design flexibility afforded to doped polymers makes them attractive in a large variety of devices and applications. This book addresses the critical science and technology issues in the development and application of poled polymers, with an emphasis on the stabilization of poled polymers and their special applications to second harmonic generation (SHG) and electro-optic (EO) devices.

The potential application areas for polymer composites are vast. While techniques and methodologies for composites design are relatively well established, the knowledge and understanding of post-design issues lag far behind. This leads to designs and eventually composites with disappointing properties and unnecessarily high cost, thus impeding a wider industrial acceptance of polymer composites.
Manufacturing of Polymer Composites completely covers pre- and post-design issues. While the book enables students to become fully comfortable with composites as a possible materials choice, it also provides sufficient knowledge about manufacturing-related issues to permit them to avoid common pitfalls and unmanufacturable designs. The book is a fully comprehensive text covering all commercially significant materials and manufacturing techniques while at the same time discussing areas of research and development that are nearing commercial reality.

"Combines fundamental theory, systematic experimentation, disciplined research, and logical procedures to simplify the thermoplastic selection process as well as reduce production cost and time. Second Edition contains new features such as rheology property data, recycling in resin selection, and more and more."

Increasing attention is being given to the use of concrete-polymer composites as high performance and multi-functional materials in the construction industry, as well as in mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering. Particular interest is being given to these materials in Japan and other East Asian countries. This book forms the proceedings of the Second East Asia Symposium on Polymers in Concrete (II-EASPIC) held under the auspices of the Japan Charter of ICPIC (the International Congress on Polymers in Concrete). Papers are presented by international experts from thirteen different countries. Many aspects of the subject are discussed, including: new developments in the theory and practice of polymer composites; studies of their performance; appropriate manufacturing techniques and materials selection processes; their structural design; various types of concrete using polymers; methods of restoration and conservation using composites; overlays; adhesives and coating used in concrete works, special innovative developments and techniques for recycling.

Cold hibernated elastic memory (CHEM) is an innovative, smart material technology that uses shape memory polymers in open cellular structures. This book extensively describes CHEM self-deployable structures, provides basic property data and characteristics, discusses advantages, and identifies numerous space, commercial, and medical applications. Some of these applications have been experimentally and analytically investigated with inspiring results and are revealed here. CHEM technology has a potential to provide groundbreaking self-deployable space structures. Some cutting-edge space CHEM concepts described in this book represent the introduction of a new generation of space deployable structures. CHEM materials have unique characteristics that enable the manufacture of self-deployable stents and other medical devices not possible currently. One of the medical applications, the CHEM endovascular treatment of aneurysm, is being experimentally explored with promising results that would save lives. This book provides a long list of interesting potential commercial CHEM applications that could simplify and make life easier at low cost. One of these products, the self-reconfiguring armchair, is already being set up for mass production. This book will be of interest to all engineering researchers, scientists, engineers, students, designers, and technologists across their relevant fields of interest. The exceptional characteristics of CHEM technology are presently enabling technologists to develop many applications ranging from outer space to inside the human body. As a result, CHEM structures are in the process of reshaping our thinking, approaches, and design methods in many ways that conventional materials and approaches do not allow.

Scientists and researchers are looking for new smart materials to replace old or conventional materials for better performance and for new applications. The use of polymeric materials and nanomaterials is increasing due to their wide-spectrum tunability and many properties. It is now easier to formulate materials for special purposes using these materials than using conventional materials and methods. Many commercial products made from polymeric materials and nanomaterials are now in use and on the market. This book presents a diverse selection of cutting-edge research on the development of polymeric materials and nanomaterials for new and different applications. These include electrical applications, biomedical applications, sensing applications, coating applications, and others. A few chapters dedicated to materials for construction applications are also included. Discussions include the properties, behavior, preparation, processing, and characterization of various polymeric materials, nanomaterials, and their composites. Some of the chapter authors present theoretical studies of these systems, which can help readers to develop a better understanding in this area.

"Provides in-depth coverage of the entire thermoforming molding process from market domain and materials options to manufacturing methods and peripheral support. Second Edition furnishes entirely new information on twin sheet forming, corrugated tubing and pipe manufacturin gtechniques, plastics recycling, forthcoming equipment, and energy and labor costs."

This book presents the reports on the developments in the field of urethane. It includes information on polyurethane automotive carpet composites, pentane blown polyurethane foams, and applications of polyols derived from renewable resources in polyurethanes and liquid crystalline polyurethanes.

This work introduces the fundamental background necessary to understand polymer devolatilization. It elucidates the actual mechanisms by which the devolatilization of polymer melts progresses, and discusses virtually every type of devolatilization equipment available. The work also addresses devolatilization in various geometries and types of equipment, describing the use of falling strand, slit, single-screw, co-rotating and counter-rotating twin-screw devolatilization.

In current materials R&D, high priority is given to surface modification techniques to achieve improved surface properties for specific applications requirements. Plasma treatment and polymerization are important technologies for this purpose.
This book provides a basic and thorough presentation of this subject. This is probably the first book to cover plasma treatment and polymerization for the purpose of surface modification. Chemistry, processes and applications are detailed. More than 150 figures include numerous schematics which illustrate the chemistry and processes. More than 100 tables and graphics provide useful reference data in convenient form.

"Offers detailed coverage of applied polymer processing--presenting a wide range of technologies and furnishing state-of-the-art data on polymer components, properties, and processibility. Reviews fundamental rheological concepts. Contains over 1600 bibliographic citations, some 450 equations, and over 400 tables, drawings, and photographs."

Integrating latest research results and characterization techniques, this book helps readers understand and apply fundamental principles in nonlinear polymer rheology. The author connects the basic theoretical framework with practical polymer processing, which aids practicing scientists and engineers to go beyond the existing knowledge and explore new applications. Describes the emerging phenomena and associated conceptual understanding in the field of nonlinear polymer rheology Incorporates details on latest experimental discoveries and provides new methodology for research in polymer rheology Integrates latest research results and new characterization techniques like particle tracking velocimetric method Focuses on the issues concerning the conceptual and phenomenological foundations for polymer rheology

This is the first book to provide an in-depth presentation of photosensitive polyimides for electronic and photonic applications. The authors are leading specialists in this field from Japan, Europe and the U.S.
From the Preface
Aromatic polyimides were developed originally as thermostable flexible polymer films for space applications. Now polyimides have found widespread use in the manufacture of electronic devices and have been employed in increasingly diverse areas of electronics and information technology. In addition to their excellent thermal stability and high processability, a wide range of chemical and physical properties provided by molecular engineering makes polyimides highly versatile in the electronics and information industries.
Lithography of polyimides is an inevitable process in using polyimides for microelectronic fields, and hence increasing research has been devoted to developing photosensitive polyimides, which make it unnecessary to use photoresists for patterning polyimides and diminishing markedly the number of steps in fabrication of various electronic devices.
In addition, the development of technology of photosensitive polyimides is expected to play a great role in manufacturing photonic devices in the near future, when the design and control of hyper fine structures . . . including higher thermal stability and better processability would be essential.

Polymer films now play an essential and growing role in sensors. Recent advances in polymer science and film preparation have made polymer films useful, practical and economical in a wide range of sensor designs and applications. Further, the continuing miniaturization of microelectronics favors the use of polymer thin films in sensors.
This new book is the first comprehensive presentation of this technology. It covers both scientific fundamentals and practical engineering aspects. Included is an extensive survey of all types of sensors and applications. The very detailed table of contents in the next pages provides full information on content. More than 200 schematics illustrate a wide variety of sensor structures and their function.

This work examines the science and technology used in the manufacture of acrylic fibre for both mass-produced commodity products and premium products. It elucidates the chemistry and fibre production techniques of speciality acrylics such as flame-retardant, water-reversible bicomponent, producer dyed and others. Capacity figures for developing countries are published here.;This work is intended for: polymer, fibre and textile scientists, chemists and engineers; physical and dye chemists; textile company managers; and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in these disciplines.

A comprehensive account of the physical / mechanical behaviour of polyurethanes (PUs) elastomers, films and blends of variable crystallinity. Aspects covered include the elasticity and inelasticity of amorphous to crystalline PUs, in relation to their sensitivity to chemical and physical structure. A study is made of how aspects of the constitutive responses of PUs vary with composition: the polyaddition procedure, the hard segment, soft segment and chain extender (diols and diamines) are varied systematically in a large number of systems of model and novel crosslinked andthermoplastic PUs. Results will be related to: microstructural changes, on the basis of evidence from x-ray scattering (SAXS and WAXS), and also dynamic mechanical analyses (DMA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and IR dichroism. Inelastic effects will be investigated also by including quantitative correlations between the magnitude of the Mullins effect and the fractional energy dissipation by hysteresis under cyclic straining, giving common relations approached by all the materials studied. A major structural feature explored is the relationship between the nature of the hard segment (crystallising or not) and that of the soft segments. Crystallinity has been sometimes observed in the commercial PUs hard phase but this is usually limited to only a few percent for most hard segment structures when solidified from the melt. One particular diisocyanate, 4,4'-dibenzyl diisocyanate (DBDI) that, in the presence of suitable chain extenders ( diols or diamines), gives rise to significant degrees of crystallinity [i-iii] and this is included in the present work. Understanding the reaction pathways involved, in resolving the subtle morphological evolution at the nanometre level, and capturing mathematically the complex, large-deformation nonlinear viscoelastic mechanical behaviour are assumed to bring new important insights in the world basic research in polyurethanes and towards applied industrial research in this area.

Provides accurate, up-to-date information on the hazardous properties of several hundred generic and specific polymeric additives used in elastomer and plastics processing operations, detailing the symproms of overexposure as well as resonsible packaging, shipping and emergency-response procedures. Essential safety data is offered.

This book first introduces polymers and polymer composites which are widely used in different industrial and engineering applications where the proper selection of fiber, filler, and polymer can be tailored for particular application. The primary objective of this book is to broaden the knowledge of tribology of polymer composites in a new dimension for Industry 4.0. For instance, the book covers polymer composites used as self-lubricating material used in the automotive industry and other manufacturing equipment to reduce the effect of energy loss due to friction and wear. This book is of interest to researchers and industrial practitioners who work in the field of tribology of polymer composites, manufacturing equipment and production engineering.

This broad-based, introductory reference provides excellent discussions regarding the hydration of Portland cement, durability problems in concrete, mechanisms of concrete deterioration, and interaction of polymers in concrete. It also covers properties of concrete with added polymers and practical applications of polymers in concrete. The historic background of polymers in building materials is examined, and a comprehensive comparison of natural vs. synthetic polymers is provided and conveniently summarized in a tabular format.

This book emphasizes the scientific origin of deformation and damage of FRP composites under various environmental effects and analyses present understanding on degradation mechanisms, role of interfaces and addition of nanofillers Discusses micro-characterization of composites and interfaces, also includes micro-mechanisms and microscopic evidences to establish the structure-property correlation Elucidates advantages and limitations of FRP composites in supercritical applications

"Providing fundamental knowledge related to worker protection from chemical, thermal, and biological hazards, this practical reference focuses on recent scientific and technical developments in protective apparel systems. Introduces relevant health and safety legislation and rulings for worker safety "

This text, now in its second edition, offers an up-to-date, expanded treatment of the behaviour of polymers with regard to material variables and test and use conditions. It highlights general principles, useful empirical rules and practical equations.;Detailing the specific behaviour of many common polymers, the text: places emphasis on time and frequency dependence over temperature dependence; uses contemporary molecular mechanisms to explain creep, stress relaxation, constant strain rate responses and crazing; provides explicit equations to predict responses; supplies a discussion of large deformation multiaxial responses; compares statistical and continuum theories on the same data set; and updates stress-strain behaviour and particulate filled systems.