Fabrication of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) / thermoplastic amide elastomer (TPAE) composite foams with supercritical carbon dioxide and their mechanical properties

Abstract The low resilience and poor elongation characteristics of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) foams make it unsuitable for applications such as high-end sports shoes. In this work the incorporation of thermoplastic amide elastomer (TPAE) into TPU foam has been investigated to meet address this shortcoming. Five TPU/TPAE composite pellets were first prepared using varying combinations of TPU, compatibilizer additive, antioxidant, processing aid, and UV stabilizer. Out of these studies, the pellet with the most hardness was foamed with supercritical CO2, to obtain the TPU/TPAE composite foams. The TPU/TPAE composite foams consisting of aminized polyether polyol, nylon 6 (as the hard segment), and Jeffamine D400 (as the soft segment) exhibit excellent resilience, high elongation, good hardness, high tensile strength, and smaller cell size. Experimental results demonstrated that introduction of TPAE into the TPU composite foam efficiently improves their mechanical performance.