Iranian Journal of Materials Science and Engineering

A method has been advanced to form porous poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) using a partially gasified porogen. Sodium hydrogen carbonate (NaHCO₃) was selected as a porogen. The standard technology of porous materials production including mixing, pressing, thermal treatment, porogen leaching and drying was employed.The formation of porous PTFE structures was investigated in a wide range of NaHCO₃ concentrations. The mechanism for formation of such structures has been proposed. It is shown that the NaHCO₃ porogen affords permeable porous structures with porosities down to 50% (cf. the lowest bound porosity of 70% attainable with the standard NaCl porogen).The flow rate characteristics of the pressure difference as a function of the air flow rate have been measured on porous PTFE samples formed using the partially gasified NaHCO₃ porogen and the NaCl porogen. The obtained flow rate characteristics were linear, which suggests a laminar air flow in the pores. The permeability of the porous PTFE structures formed using the above porogens has been estimated.The use of the NaHCO₃ porogen has allowed a five-fold cut of the leaching time, a more than three times enhancement of the permeability of the porous structures and an increase in the hydraulic pore diameter by a factor of 1.8 as compared to the corresponding data obtained with the NaCl porogen.