National Synchrotron Light Source Seminar

Tremendous amounts of research are currently in place to investigate alternatives to energy inefficient and environmentally harmful operations. One such novel route in the polymer industry is the utilization of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) as a “green” solvent for polymer processes. Unfortunately, because of its chemically inert nature, few long-chained molecules are soluble in CO2, limiting its potential to be a vital industrial processing tool. However, we recently found that under a specific set of temperature and pressure conditions near the critical point (Tc = 31.3 °C and Pc =7.38), known as the density fluctuation ridge, anomalous adsorption of the molecules occurred in polymer thin films. In this talk, I would like to show that by exploiting this unique trait, density fluctuating scCO2 could be utilized as a valid polymer processing tool, and towards the fabrication of advanced materials: 1) low density polymer thin films with molecular scale porosity used for low-dielectric applications 2) polymer thin films with enhanced crystallinity 3) well-ordered block copolymer thin films with controllable orientations. Such advances can eventually play a key role in the transformation of industrial operations to meet evolving environmental standards.