Study on the Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of LDPE/UHMWPE Solution Blend Foams

Polymer foams are two-phase materials in which a gas is dispersed in a continuous polymer phase [1]. Polyethylene (PE) foam is one of the polymeric foams that have beenextensively used in many applications, such as construction, sport and leisure, automotive, agriculture, packaging and etc.[2,3]. Most of the PE foams have a closed-cell structure and do not have sufficient melt viscosity and elasticity above the melting point to experience large deformation duringexpansion [4]. Therefore, to achieve suitable melt strength and foamability, a crosslinking agent is used to alter the meltviscosity to a desired level.Chemically crosslinked PE foams are not recyclable. In this work, a new route was studied to reduce crosslinking agent content, so that with decreasingcrosslink agent content up to 0.1phr and addition of various contents of UHMWPE into LDPE, the desired melt viscosity for foaming process was provided. This causes a recyclable foam with appropriate properties