The development and application of nucleating agents have developed rapidly, and the varieties and yields have increased to a certain extent. But at present, the research and development, quality stability, product structure and benefit scale of nucleating agent need to be improved and improved. We have a lot of work to do. We should focus on the research, development and production of nucleating agents with independent intellectual property rights, and form a new additive industry in China as soon as possible. Therefore, the main research direction and development trend of nucleators in the future should include the following aspects:
- Compounding of nucleating agent. As the development of new compounds is difficult, multi-component composite additives have become an important trend in the development of polymer additives, including nucleating agents. However, it should be noted that the development of composite nucleating agent is not only the combination of several simple substances, but also the molecular design of nucleating agent, so that it has other functions. For example, foreign researchers modified the sulfur-containing substituents on two benzylidene rings of sorbitol derivatives, and successfully developed the liquid composite transparent nucleating agent for polyolefin. In the future, the composite process and modification mechanism of nucleating agent will become the main research direction.
- The relationship between the chemical structure and microcrystalline structure of nucleating agent and the crystallization and morphology of polypropylene was explored. At present, there are few innovative nucleating agent structures, and the existing structures are discovered by accident based on experience, mainly because the relationship between the molecular structure of nucleating agent, crystal structure and polypropylene crystallization is not very clear. Therefore, the next step is to strengthen the analysis of nucleating agent crystal structure, so as to clarify the mechanism of nucleating agent in polypropylene and lay a theoretical foundation for the structural innovation of nucleating agent.
- Using simulation software such as materials studio Modeling et al. Simulated the chemical structure and crystal form of nucleating agent, and matched with the spatial structure and crystal structure of polypropylene, so as to preliminarily determine which type of nucleating agent has good nucleating effect through calculation, so as to avoid a large number of screening work of nucleating agent, which is helpful for the development of new and efficient nucleating agent.
- Green nucleating agent. Nucleated polypropylene materials are gradually used in household products, food packaging and medical injection molding products, which have very strict requirements for toxicity and environmental protection performance of various additives added in the materials, and the added value of these materials is relatively high, which has a good development prospect.
- High performance of β nucleating agent. At present, it is the only way to produce commercial β crystalline polypropylene by adding β crystalline nucleating agent, and it is also a new field and hot spot in the research and development of nucleating agent technology. Due to its good toughness, the elongation at break and notched impact strength of β – crystalline polypropylene are several times higher than that of α – crystalline polypropylene. The hot deformation temperature can be increased by 10-25 ℃ and the melting point can be reduced by 15 ℃.
