Porous materials such as polymeric foam are widely adopted in engineering and biomedical fields. Porous materials often exhibit complex nonlinear behaviors and are sensitive to material and environmental factors including cell size and shape, amount of porosity, and temperature, which are influenced by the type of base materials, reinforcements, method of fabrication, etc. Hence, the material characteristics of porous materials such as compressive stress-strain behavior and void volume fraction according to aforementioned factors should be precisely identified. In this study, unconfined uniaxial compressive test for two types of closed-cell structure polyurethane foam, namely, 0.16 and 0.32 g/cm3 of densities were carried out. In addition, the void volume fraction of three different domains, namely, center, surface and buckling regions under various compressive strains (10%, 30 %, 50 % and 70 %) were quantitatively observed using Micro 3D Computed Tomography(micro-CT) scanning system. Based on the experimental results, the relationship between compressive strain and void volume fraction with respect to cell size, density and boundary condition were investigated.

현재 많은 산업에서 구조물의 온도환경 유지를 위한 단열재로 폴리우레탄 폼이 사용되며, 수명 동안 정적 및 동적의 다양 한 하중이 이에 부과된다. 폴리우레탄 폼은 고분자재료로써 다공성이며, 단열성능은 내부기공의 크기에 크게 의존한다. 또 한, 폴리우레탄 폼의 기계적 거동은 변형률 속도 및 온도에 대한 의존성이 큰 동시에 압축에 대하여 큰 비선형 연성거동을 보인다. 이러한 비선형 연성 압축거동 중에 폴리우레탄 폼은 변형률의 증가에 따라 기공율과 탄성계수의 감소를 보인다. 따 라서 본 연구에서는 상기 특성들을 포함한 폴리우레탄 폼의 변형률 속도 및 온도 의존 비선형 압축거동을 모사하기 위하여 온도 의존 손상 점소성 구성방정식이 개발되었다.

Monolithic carbon foams with hierarchical porosity were prepared from polyurethane templates and resol precursors. Mesoporosity was achieved through the use of soft templating with surfactant Pluronic F127, and macroporosity from the polyurethane foams was retained. Conditions to obtain high porosity materials were optimized. The best materials have high specific surface areas (380 and 582 m2 g–1, respectively) and high electrical conductivity, which make them good candidates for supports in sensors. These materials showed an almost linear dependence between the potential and the pH of aqueous solutions.

The objective of this study was to investigate the response characteristics and performance of a biofilter in the removal of ammonia, as a malodor compound. A trickle-bed type biofilter was applied for this study, and operated at the ammonia loading rate of 0.97-15.52 g/m3·h. The results of the experiment indicate that the critical loading rate of ammonia to the biofilter was 10.7 g/m3·h and the elimination capacity was 11.6 g/m3·h. The analysis of nitrogen mass balance in the reactor indicates that inlet nitrogen as gas phase was converted through the biofilter into NH4 + (41.5% by mass), NO2 - (43%), and NO3 - (15%) as the available form of nitrogen in the effluent liquid. Free ammonia concentration in the effluent liquid was estimated as being in the range from 0.14 to 2.93 mg/L (average 1.7 mg/L) during the experimental period.

뛰어난 단열성능을 가지는 폴리우레탄 폼(polyurethane foam, PUF)은 다양한 구조물에서 다른 재료들과 함께 사용되고 있다. 현재 LNG 운반선의 단열시스템에는 유리섬유로 강화된 폴리우레탄 폼(reinforced-polyurethane foam, R-PUF)이 사용되고 있으며, 이는 단열재 역할뿐만 아니라 슬로싱 하중을 포함한 다양한 압축하중에 대한 구조부재 기능을 수행하고 있다. 폴리우레탄 폼은 혼합과 발포를 통해 제작되는 다공성 재료이기 때문에, 본 연구에서는 기공체적비율을 통해 재료의 거동을 모사할 수 있는 Gurson damage model을 사용하여 폴리우레탄 폼의 비선형 압축거동을 모사하였으며, 폴리우레탄 폼의 기계적 성질에 영향을 미치는 영향변수로서 기공체적비율에 의존적으로 알려져 있는 밀도를 설정하였다.

Used polyurethane was chemically degraded by treatments with flame retardants such as tris(3-chloropropyl) phosphate (TCPP), triethyl phosphate (TEP), and trimethyl phosphate (TMP). The structure of degraded products (DEP) was analyzed by FT-IR and P-NMR and it turned out to be phosphorus containing oligourethanes. Rigid polyurethane foam was produced by using the degraded products (DEP) as flame retardants. The flammability of recycled rigid polyurethane was investigated. The recycled polyurethane shows a reduced flammability over virgin polyurethane. In order to evaluate flame retardant properties of the recycled polyurethane foams with various amounts of DEP, the combustion parameters of the foam was measured by a cone calorimeter. Scanning electron micrograph of recycled PU shows the same uniform cell morphology as virgin PU.

본 연구는 실리콘계 정포제의 특성에 따른 폴리우레탄 폼 지수제의 cell 구조와 흡수량 변화를 알아보기 위하여 6종의 정포제를 사 용하여 폴리우레탄 폼 지수제를 제조하여 FE-SEM으로 분석한 결과 실리콘 정포제의 실록산 주사슬 말단에 PO n개가 결합되어 있는 DC-193, DC-2585, DC-5125, DC-198의 cell 구조는 close cell로 확인이 되었고, 실리콘 정포제의 실록산 주사슬 말단에 EO n개가 결합 되어 있는 DC-5043과 DC-5598은 open cell 구조로 나타났다. 또한 cell 구조 변화에 따른 흡수량 에서는 close cell의 크기가 가장 세밀하고 균일한 DC-193의 흡수량이 가장 적게 나타나 내수성이 가장 우수한 것으로 나타났으며 open cell의 크기가 가장 크게 형성된 DC-5043의 흡수량이 가 장 많은 것으로 나타났다. 이들의 방수성능을 콘크리트 구조물을 모사하여 시험한 결과 누수가 없음을 확인하였다.

In recent decades, biofiltration has been widely accepted for the treatment of contaminated air stream containing low concentration of odorous compounds or volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In this study, conventional biofilters packed with flexible synthetic polyurethane (PU) foam carriers were operated to remove toluene from a contaminated air stream. PU foams containing various amounts of pulverized activated carbon (PAC) were synthesized for the biofilter media and tested for toluene removal. Four biofilter columns were operated for 60 days to remove gaseous toluene from a contaminated air stream. During the biofiltration experiment, inlet toluene concentration was in the range of 0-150 ppm and EBRT (i.e., empty bed residence time) was kept at 26-42 seconds. Pressure drop of the biofilter bed was less than 3 mm H2O/m filter bed. The maximum removal capacity of toluene in the biofilters packed with PU-PAC foam was in the order of column II (PAC = 7.08%) > column III (PAC = 8.97%) > column I (PAC = 4.95%) > column IV (PAC = 13.52%), while the complete removal capacity was in the order of column II > column I > column III > column IV. The better biofiltration performance in column II was attributed to higher porosity providing favorable conditions for microbial growth. The results of biodegradation kinetic analysis showed that PU-PAC foam with 7.08% of PAC content had higher maximum removal rate (Vm = 14.99 g toluene/kg dry material/day) than the other PU-PAC foams. In overall, the performance of biofiltration might be affected by the structure and physicochemical properties of PU foam induced by PAC content.