Extraordinary mechanical performance in disentangled UHMWPE films processed by compression molding.

An approach to obtain disentangled ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) films is proposed using a common compression molding. For that, disentangled UHMWPE nascent powders from reactor are processed at temperatures lower than the main melting peak and at high pressure. Then, disentangled UHMWPE films obtained from homogeneous polymerization powders and from those that incorporate SBA-15 mesoporous silica can be easily achieved by this simple methodology. These disentangled UHMWPE based materials show very high crystallinity and, consequently, outstanding elastic modulus and hardness, both further increasing by presence of mesoporous SBA-15 in the hybrids.