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Characterization of polymer materials using magnetic levitation

  • Organic and Hybrid Functional Materials
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Abstract

The quality of the polymer raw material used in plastic processing methods is an important characteristic because it is one of the main factors in producing quality products. Therefore, the characterization of polymeric pellets in the polymer processing industry is very important to avoid using inferior materials. In general, differences in the interiors of polymeric pellets reflect differences in their densities. In this study, a high-sensitivity magnetic levitation method was used to characterize the polymeric pellets in four different occasions. The device used has a high sensitivity that can distinguish minute differences as small as of 0.0041 g/cm3 in density between different samples. In addition, the method can obtain a sample’s density without knowing the weight and volume of the sample. This method can be used to characterize materials by testing only a single pellet, which is very useful for polymeric pellet characterization.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support received from the Key Research and Development Plan of Zhejiang Province (No. 2020C01113), the National Natural Science Foundation Council of China (Nos. 51821093, 51875519, and 51635006), and the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. LZ18E050002). The authors would also like to acknowledge the support of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, the China Scholarship Council, and the 2019 Zhejiang University Academic Award for Outstanding Doctoral Candidates.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Key Lab of 3D Printing Process and Equipment of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Jun Xie, Peng Zhao, Jianfeng Zhang & Jianzhong Fu

  2. Research and Development Department, Tederic Machinery Co., Ltd, Hangzhou, 311124, China

    Hongwei Zhou

  3. Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA

    Lih-Sheng Turng

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  1. Jun Xie
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  2. Peng Zhao
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  3. Jianfeng Zhang
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  4. Hongwei Zhou
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  5. Jianzhong Fu
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  6. Lih-Sheng Turng
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Correspondence to Peng Zhao.

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Xie, J., Zhao, P., Zhang, J. et al. Characterization of polymer materials using magnetic levitation. Journal of Materials Research 35, 1182–1189 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2020.61

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2020.61

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