Chad J. Booth

Effects on Impact and Tensile Behavior of Transparent Polymer Materials by the Addition of Anti-Biofouling Agents

This paper reports the effects on both the impact and tensile behavior, impact resistance, modulus, strain at break, and peak load for a series of polymers with anti-biofouling agents added. The materials include PMMA, bisphenol-A polycarbonate, and a co-polyterephthalate derived from 2,2,4,4-tetramethyl-1,3-cyclobutanediol and 1,3-propanediol (CBDO). The anti-biofouling agents studied were the algaecides Irgarol 1051 and Diuron. The anti-biofouling agents were not simply used as a coating but were compounded into pelletized material and then compression molded into test plaques. The results show that PMMA is the only polymeric material studied that does not show a decrease in impact resistance with an increasing quantity of the anti-biofouling agent. With respect to modulus, strain at break, and peak load, both PMMA and CBDO showed little dependence on the amount or type of anti-biofouling additive.

Property Modification via Crosslinking in CBDO-Based Copolyterephthalates

The work discussed herein focuses on the examination of the effects of crosslinking CBDO containing copolyterephthalates. A series of copolyterephthalates containing the aliphatic CBDO monomer along with aromatic diols was examined. These materials incorporate CBDO, bisphenol A, phloroglucinol, and terephthaloyl chloride and were made using standard solution polymerization techniques. The phloroglucinol, a trifunctional aromatic alcohol, was used as the crosslinking agent. The series of materials examined included both linear and crosslinked systems. The percent incorporations of the selected monomers, CBDO, bisphenol A, phloroglucinol, and terephthaloyl chloride, was varied to create a homologous series of polymers. Each polymer material was characterized for both thermal and mechanical performance.