Expanding Polyethylene and Polypropylene Applications to High-Energy Areas by Applying Polyolefin-Bonded Antioxidants

Despite a broad range of commercial applications, polyolefins, including polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), are not recommended for applications that require long-term exposure to elevated temperatures, high electric fields, organic solvents, and combinations of those, due to both chemical and physical stability concerns. This paper discusses current antioxidants/stabilizers and cross-linking technologies and their shortcomings under extreme application conditions. The incompatibility of polar antioxidants in nonpolar and semicrystalline polyolefin prevents homogeneous distribution with adequate concentration required for protecting the polymer chain from thermal–oxidative degradation. A new approach for incorporating hindered phenol (HP) antioxidant groups in the polyolefin chain offers a specific HP concentration homogeneously distributed in the polyolefin matrix, which not only shows effective antioxidation protection but also in situ forms a polymer network via a coupling reaction between two d...