PVDF (Polyvinylidene Fluoride) is a highly non - reactive thermoplastic fluoropolymer. The following are its advantages and disadvantages:
Strong Chemical Stability: It can withstand the erosion of most acids, alkalis, salts, and organic solvents. In industries such as chemical engineering and petroleum, it is often used to manufacture equipment like pipes, valves, and pumps, ensuring the stable operation of equipment in harsh chemical environments.
Good Mechanical Properties: It has relatively high tensile, compressive, and impact strengths, as well as good strength and rigidity. It can withstand large loads and pressure stresses, making it suitable for applications where mechanical properties are required.
Excellent Electrical Properties: It is a good electrical insulating material with a high dielectric constant and a large dielectric loss tangent value. In the field of electronics and electrical engineering, it is commonly used as insulation for wires and packaging materials for electronic components.
Good Processability: It can be formed through various processing methods for thermoplastics, such as extrusion, injection molding, casting, and molding. The formed products have a smooth surface and stable dimensions.
Outstanding Weather Resistance: It is resistant to ultraviolet rays and oxidation, can be used outdoors for a long time, is not easily affected by moisture, and maintains stable physical and chemical properties. The fluorocarbon coatings prepared from it are widely used in buildings such as power stations and airports.
Good Biocompatibility: It is widely used in the fields of medical devices and biomedicine, such as artificial joints, catheters, medical dressing films, and cell culture scaffolds.
Piezoelectric and Pyroelectric Properties: As an organic piezoelectric material, it has advantages such as flexibility, low density, and low impedance, and is applied in fields such as underwater acoustic and ultrasonic measurement, and pressure sensing. It also has pyroelectric properties and can be used in related sensors.
Environmental Friendliness: Some viewpoints hold that PVDF is a biodegradable material, and it is non - toxic and odorless, meeting food - grade safety standards. It can be used for containers, pipes, and packaging materials in the medical and food industries.
High Cost: Its production process is complex, and the raw material cost is high, resulting in relatively expensive products, which limits its application in price - sensitive fields.
Brittleness Problem: It has poor toughness and relatively low impact toughness, and is prone to brittle fracture, especially becoming brittle at low temperatures. Excessive impact loads need to be avoided during use.
Difficult Processing: It has a relatively high melting point, and processing needs to be carried out at a high temperature, which increases energy consumption and equipment requirements. Moreover, during the processing, problems such as poor fluidity and high molding shrinkage rate may occur, so the process needs to be well - controlled.
Limitations in Solvent Resistance: Under specific conditions, it may be affected by certain strong solvents. For example, some ketones and esters may soften or dissolve it.
Other Drawbacks: It has poor adsorption of pigments, making coloring difficult and limiting color choices; it has poor adhesion to other materials, which may affect the actual application effect; it is prone to aging when exposed to ultraviolet rays for a long time, affecting its performance and appearance; it has a relatively large coefficient of thermal expansion, is sensitive to temperature, and has poor dimensional stability in environments with large temperature changes, being prone to deformation.
