Environmentally Benign, Low Cost Technology R & D Project to Develop a New Super-Engineering Plastic.(Brief Article)

Part of the NEDO Programme `Technology for Novel High-Functional Materials' in participation with the Japan Chemical Innovation Institute / the National Institute of Materials and Chemical Research / the Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University / Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd. / Fukui University of Technology and the University of Tsukuba.

The aim of the ongoing research and development project has been to develop an oxidative polymerisation process for manufacturing super-engineering plastics, based on the mandate that highly heat resistant SEPs should be produced in a process that causes no damage to the environment.

Super Engineering Plastics (SEPs) able to continuously and reliably withstand temperatures above 150 Degrees C, are indispensable in advanced IT, electronics, and transport industries and PEEK (poly-ether-etherketone) developed by the UK's ICI, dominates the market for high heat resistant injection molding type SEPs with a crystal melting point over 300 degrees C.

As with most SEPs, PEEK is manufactured in a dehalogenation polycondensation process which employs a halogenated compound as one of the monomer building blocks. Halogens are environmentally destructive on a global scale, and more and more pressure is being exerted to introduce legislation to control their use. Another faultline is that the production process releases large amounts of inorganic salts and also requires a high reaction temperature. As a consequence PEEK is relatively costly at around US$113-0 per kilo.

The key to the NEDO funded research has been the development of a highly selective catalyst capable of preventing couplings in the ortho positions of the phenols that have at least one unsubstituted ortho position.

After several years of work, the team came to the conclusion that conventional polymerisation catalysts do not control coupling ...