A new methodology to control the morphology of polymers and hence their properties

A new methodology to control the morphology of polymers and hence their properties has been published by CDRSP-IPLeira Researcher Professor Geoffrey Mitchell as part of a FCT funded project “Understanding Crystallisation for Enhanced Properties UC4EP”.

By making a very small change to the composition of the plastic resin, Professor Mitchell’s team were able to observe a 90 degree rotation of the orientation of the crystals. Professor Mitchell said “This discovery will have important implication for the preparation of polymer scaffolds produced at CDRSP for tissue engineering. It will dramatically change the degradation rate and may well influence the adhesions of cells to the scaffolds. Another application where this control will be important is the production of food packaging to control oxygen ingress in to the food , for example meat; The orientation of the polymer crystals has a dramatic impact on the diffusion rate”. The work has been published in “Polymers” an open access journal published by MPDI In Basel Switzerland with an impact factor of 3.364 put in the first quartile of all Polymer Science Journals.

You can read the scientific paper without cost at http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/10/3/300