The Difference Between Supercritical Foaming And Chemical Foaming

The Essential Difference Between Supercritical Foaming And Chemical Foaming

Physical Foaming: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and other gases are treated by high temperature and pressure, the supercritical fluid acts as a foaming agent, and the process of supercritical fluid becoming a gas under normal temperature and pressure is a physical change.

Chemical Foaming: azodicarbonamide, sodium bicarbonate, and other chemical foaming agents, take azodicarbonamide (also known as AC foaming agent) as an example, it produces nitrogen, and carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and ammonia when decomposed by heat, the process is a chemical change.

The advantages and disadvantages of them and process comparison

Supercritical Foaming：

Supercritical foams prepare pure foaming materials with food safety grade and can have good compatibility with skin.

Compared with chemical foaming, supercritical foaming has a finer pore structure and more stable performance.

Supercritical foams have greater impact strength, better thermal stability, toughness, good acoustic properties, lower thermal conductivity, and thermal conductivity.

The long maturation time will affect the production efficiency, and the rapid temperature rise or rapid pressure relief has higher requirements for energy and equipment safety.

Chemical Foaming (Take Azodicarbonamide As An Example)：

It has the largest air generation capacity, more uniform bubble holes, superior performance, and wide range of uses.

Decomposition temperature can be adjusted and does not affect the curing and molding speed, the process is very mature.

AC foam is yellow crystal, and decomposition is easy to produce more by-products, such as particle size is not fine enough will lead to more by-products, resulting in products with a taste, color deviation.

Development Trend of Foaming Process

Supercritical foaming is an emerging process, In the past traditional chemical foaming of some materials was difficult to achieve lightweight, low-density performance, and the development of supercritical foaming technology can be made more materials to achieve lightweight, low-density performance, while having the advantages of environmental protection and clean, but also in line with the current carbon neutral large development strategy.

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