Engineering plastics have garnered increased industrial attention in the past decades due to the considerable benefits that they offer in such areas as aerospace, automotive manufacturing, electronic packaging, and more.[1] Due to their relatively easy and inexpensive fabrication requirements, reduced weight, and equaling or increased material strength and chemical stability, engineering plastics have slowly replaced wood, ceramic, and metals in the fabrication of engineering materials, and continue to find new applications.
Examples of engineering plastics include polycarbonates used in the making of automotive bumpers, headlamp lenses, and phones cases due to their high impact resistance, nylon largely used in the synthesis of fiber and in the electronic industries, polysulfone used in the fabribation of fuel cells and it can be reinforced to with glass fibers to produce high tensile materials, and more.
The goal of this study was to demonstrate the importance of GPC in the analysis of commercially available plastics that are used in modern engineering materials. Herein, 5 types of plastics, namely nylon 6, nylon 12, polycarbonate, polyacetal, and polysulfone were analyzed by standardized Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC), an analytical service offered at Jordi Labs.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/materials-science/engineering-plastic
