Polymerization in microgravity as a new process in space technology

The paper briefly reviews the results of orbital experiments and terrestria l simulations performed by research teams from Russia, USA, Uzbekistan, Ita ly, and Germany to investigate the basic mechanisms of gravitational polyme rization sensitivity. The occurrence of convective instability, the evoluti on of convective flows and the front instability are analyzed for different frontal polymerization processes. It is shown that these effects are respo nsible for inhomogeneity of the polymer synthesized in terrestrial conditio ns. The different ways of instability suppression and polymerization contro l are proposed. The possibilities of synthesising more homogeneous polymer materials in space compared to terrestrial specimens are demonstrated. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.