The Polymer Characterization Facility is maintained by the CEMS Polymer Group, but is available to researchers campus wide, and also to industrial clients (IPRIME Industrial Partners get a significant discount). Assistance or collaboration is available for testing, training, and interpretation of results. For more information, contact David Giles at (612) 625-0880 or giles@cems.umn.edu . The Rheology Lab is a major part of the Polymer Characterization Facility, and rheometry can be a sensitive probe of structure in complex materials such as polymers. See also: The Rheology Short Course .

Facility Equipment

Rotational Rheometers

TA Instruments AR-G2 (melts and liquids)
TA Instruments Rheometric Series ARES (solids, melts, and liquids)
Rheometric Scientific RMS-800 (solids, melts, and liquids)
Rheometric Scientific SR200 (melts and liquids)

Extensional Rheometers

Rheometric Scientific RME (melts)
Rheometric Scientific RFX (liquids)
Rheometric Scientific RSA-II (solids)

Capillary Rheometer

Goettfert Visco-Tester 1500 (melts)

Mixers

Thermo Electron Polylab with Rheomix 600 (batch, melts, 50 gram size)
Prism 16 mm Twin Screw Extruder (continuous, melts)
DACA Mixer and Molder (4 gram size)

Injection Molder

Morgan Industries Morgan Press (lab scale injection molder)

Differential Scanning Calorimetry

TA Instruments Q1000 for -180 to 300 degrees C
Perkin Elmer DSC7 for 20 to 600 degrees C
Perkin Elmer Pyris DSC for -170 to 250 degrees C

Gel Permeation Chromatography (polymer molecular weight)

Polymer Labs PL-GPC 220 for high temperature (e.g. polyolefins)
Waters modular room temperature system

Particle Size Analysis

Coulter LS230 for particles 0.04 µm to 2000 µm