Casting
“Casting is a manufacturing process by which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. Casting is a 6000 year old process. The oldest surviving casting is a copper frog from 3200 BC” (Wikipedia; Casting, 8/5/2010)
Casting Eyeglasses
Casting Footwear
Casting Molds
Golf Ball Casting
Phase Separation Casting
Processing
Silicone Molds
Solution Casting
Spin Casting /Centrifugal Ruber Mold Casting
Recent US Patents
7,790,084
Method of manufacture of separation devices
Wapner and Hoffman of the US Air Force have developed a filtration device consisting ot two sets of precisely shaped capillaries, one set hydrophilic and one set hydrophobic. The filters are mad by casting a material around fibers in an array, solidifying and removing the fibers. The surfaces may be made hydrophilic or hydrophobic by the materials selection or surface treatments. (RDC 11/29/2010)
Recent Journal Articles
Enhanced Stereocomplex Crystallization of Biodegradable Enantiomeric Poly(lactic acid)s by Repeated Casting
(583–589)Macromolecular Materials and Engineering 296 #7 (2011)
Tsuji and Yamamoto of Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan, showed that for all solvents, the crystallinities of stereocomplex crystallites and homocrystallites increased and decreased, respectively, with increasing number of castings, indicating that repeated casting is a promising method to enhance stereocomplex crystallization. (RDC 7/14/2011)
Effect of montmorillonite on the morphologies and properties of monomer casting polyamide 6/polystyrene blends via successive in situ polymerization
(2700-2708) Journal of Materials Science 46 #8 (2011)
Liu et al, China prepared monomer casting polyamide 6 (MCPA6)/polystyrene (PS)/montmorillonite (MMT) ternary composites via successive in situ polymerization. Incorporation of certain amount of Na+-MMT results in the diameter of PA6 dispersed microspheres in PS matrix increased significantly from several to dozens of micrometers. It was interesting to find that all Na+-MMT was dispersed only in the MCPA6 microspheres. The morphologies of the ternary blends change from dispersed PA6 microspheres/PS matrix to dispersed PA6 network with inclusion of local PA6 microspheres/PS matrix. The MMT layers leaded to the co-existence of α-crystalline form and γ-crystalline form of PA6. (RDC 2/22/2011)