Optimising open and closed cooling time for hybrid injection moulding of polypropylene with polyamide inserts from multi jet fusion

To reduce the lead time and costs for developing short run production injection moulding tools the potential of additive manufactured mould inserts is investigated. These hybrid moulds are compared to conventional steel-based moulds, considering mechanical and thermal differences. For part production and insert material, respectively polypropylene and polyamide12 manufactured by Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) are chosen. Moldex3D simulation results show that lower clamping forces and injection pressures are sufficient upon using MJF inserts due to a 20 times lower thermal diffusivity compared to conventional steel, resulting in thinner skin layers and increased solidification times. Practical injection moulding parameters have been optimized by reducing the cooling time with 75 seconds (60%) using forced convectional cooling at 15 degrees C. Core and cavity inserts show a deviating cooling behaviour linked to the higher amount of insert material and presence of steel. The wear of the mould inserts is minor after producing 360 parts

Distribution changes during thermal degradation of poly(styrene peroxide) by pairing tree-based kinetic Monte Carlo and artificial intelligence tools

A tree-based kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) model is presented that differentiates between 38 end-group pairs for isothermal degradation of poly(styrene peroxide) (PSP). The binary trees allow for fast and accurate calculation of reaction probabilities, with mass-weighted binary trees for the accurate sampling of peroxide bond fissions and hydrogen abstractions along chains. The kinetic parameters are tuned via artificial neural networks (ANNs) to successfully predict literature experimental data, among other lumped product yields. ANNs are also utilized for sensitivity analysis to unravel the effects of individual reactions on the time evolution of experimental responses and other simulation outputs, including the variations of the chain length distributions of the macrospecies. PSP degradation is characterized by three stages of degradation considering both instantaneous and time-averaged concentrations. The first stage features rapid unzipping and results in the fast production of major products benzaldehyde and formaldehyde, the second stage features the most significant level of hydrogen abstractions involving PSP and other macrospecies types, and the third stage exhibits the consumption of the remaining peroxide bonds toward oligomeric species in a wide time frame until the degradation process is finalized by the depletion of peroxide bonds. This proof-of-concept study based on unprecedentedly detailed analyses of the chemistry via kinetic Monte Carlo paves the way to further improve our understanding of chemical recycling of solid plastic waste

Ca2+ homeostasis in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Impact of ER/Golgi Ca2+ storage

Yeast has proven to be a powerful tool to elucidate the molecular aspects of several biological processes in higher eukaryotes. As in mammalian cells, yeast intracellular Ca(2+) signalling is crucial for a myriad of biological processes. Yeast cells also bear homologs of the major components of the Ca(2+) signalling toolkit in mammalian cells, including channels, co-transporters and pumps. Using yeast single- and multiple-gene deletion strains of various plasma membrane and organellar Ca(2+) transporters, combined with manipulations to estimate intracellular Ca(2+) storage, we evaluated the contribution of individual transport systems to intracellular Ca(2+) homeostasis. Yeast strains lacking Pmr1 and/or Cod1, two ion pumps implicated in ER/Golgi Ca(2+) homeostasis, displayed a fragmented vacuolar phenotype and showed increased vacuolar Ca(2+) uptake and Ca(2+) influx across the plasma membrane. In the pmr1Δ strain, these effects were insensitive to calcineurin activity, independent of Cch1/Mid1 Ca(2+) channels and Pmc1 but required Vcx1. By contrast, in the cod1Δ strain increased vacuolar Ca(2+) uptake was not affected by Vcx1 deletion but was largely dependent on Pmc1 activity. Our analysis further corroborates the distinct roles of Vcx1 and Pmc1 in vacuolar Ca(2+) uptake and point to the existence of not-yet identified Ca(2+) influx pathways.publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Ca2+ homeostasis in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae: Impact of ER/Golgi Ca2+ storage journaltitle: Cell Calcium articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ceca.2015.05.004 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.status: publishe

Constructing and validating ternary phase diagrams as basis for polymer dissolution recycling

One of the recycling methods for polymer waste is the dissolution-precipitation process, which is based on dissolving the polymer in a suitable solvent followed by contaminant removal by, optionally filtration, and polymer precipitation through the addition of a nonsolvent. As showcased for poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), a polymer used in the construction sector and for packaging, the current work makes clear that the less studied ternary phase diagrams are a very promising tool for the ideal solvent-nonsolvent selection. Such ternary phase diagrams provide compositional information concerning the phase separation process pushing forward the dissolution-precipitation recycling technology. It is demonstrated that these diagrams can be constructed by connecting the Flory-Huggins theory, Hansen solubility parameters and UNIQUAC activity coefficients. Model validation is performed via cloud point measurements for which one can utilize labour-intensive visual inspection or, as demonstrated in this work, one can also apply dynamic light scattering and turbidimetry, with the latter as the preferred method that is cheaper and faster. Ternary phase diagrams for multiple solvent-nonsolvent systems are theoretically constructed and experimentally validated, considering cyclohexanone-ethanol and THF-ethanol as solvent-nonsolvent pairs. It follows that PVC phase diagrams are inherently different compared to other, more commonly studied polymers, such as polyethersulfone (PES) and that for PVC the addition of a ternary interaction parameter might be required

Setting the Optimal Laser Power for Sustainable Powder Bed Fusion Processing of Elastomeric Polyesters:A Combined Experimental and Theoretical Study

Additive manufacturing (AM) of polymeric materials offers many benefits, from rapid prototyping to the production of end-use material parts. Powder bed fusion (PBF), more specifically selective laser sintering (SLS), is a very promising AM technology. However, up until now, most SLS research has been directed toward polyamide powders. In addition, only basic models have been put forward that are less directed to the identification of the most suited operating conditions in a sustainable production context. In the present combined experimental and theoretical study, the impacts of several SLS processing parameters (e.g., laser power, part bed temperature, and layer thickness) are investigated for a thermoplastic elastomer polyester by means of colorimetric, morphological, physical, and mechanical analysis of the printed parts. It is shown that an optimal SLS processing window exists in which the printed polyester material presents a higher density and better mechanical properties as well as a low yellowing index, specifically upon using a laser power of 17–20 W. It is further highlighted that the current models are not accurate enough at predicting the laser power at which thermal degradation occurs. Updated and more fundamental equations are therefore proposed, and guidelines are formulated to better assess the laser power for degradation and the maximal temperature achieved during sintering. This is performed by employing the reflection and absorbance of the laser light and taking into account the particle size distribution of the powder material