I am studying microbial biodegradation of polyethylene and I want to make some pure PE films so there is not risk of other carbon sources from plasticizers. I have LDPE powder already and would like to use this if possible to make some films, the melting temp of the powder is 92oC. Could anyone help me with a method of how to turn the powder into a film, or if it can only be easily done with pellets - how to turn pellets into film?
Thank you so much,
Nels Wedin, University of Minnesota
Dear Dr. Nelson Wedin,
I suggest you to have a look at the following papers:
-Study on Dissolution of Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE)
S.L. Wong, N.Ngadi, T.A.T.Abdullah
Available at: http://akademiabaru.com/wvcarmea/docu/048.pdf
-Processing and characterization of polyethylene-based composites
P. Noorunnisa Khanam & Mariam Al Ali AlMaadeed
Advanced Manufacturing: Polymer & Composites Science, Vol. 1, Issue 2, pages 63-79 (2015)
Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1179/2055035915Y.0000000002
and the interesting discussion about the question: “What is the effective method for dissolution of HDPE and LDPE ?” present directly in ResearchGate.
Best regards, Pierluigi Traverso
Find yourself a heated lab press. Just about every polymer/materials lab has one.
https://www.carverpress.com/products/benchtop-manual/heated
Pierluigi Traverso Peter Farrington , Thank you for your responses. Do these methods work without adding any additives? In my current experiments I am using pure polyethylene powder from sigma aldrich so, as I understand it, there are no additives. And I don't want to introduce a potential carbon source to bring the results into question if the microbes are just living of a plastisizer instead of the polyethylene.
Thank you
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