The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 21, 2025
Filed:
Oct. 04, 2018
W.l. Gore & Associates, Inc., Newark, DE (US);
Yuri Ebata, West Grove, PA (US);
Todd S. Sayler, Bear, DE (US);
W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., Newark, DE (US);
Abstract
A method of forming an unsintered biaxially expanded PTFE/thermoplastic polymer composite membrane is provided. The method includes blending fibrillatable polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) particles and thermoplastic polymer particles where the melting point of the thermoplastic polymer particles is less than the melting point of the fibrillatable PTFE particles. The method further includes forming the blend into a tape and expanding and heating the tape in a first direction at a first temperature. The expanded tape is then expanded, either concurrently or sequentially in a second direction to form an ePTFE composite membrane. The method does not include a sintering temperature. The ePTFE particles and thermoplastic polymer particles have an average particle size of less than 1 μm. In addition, the ePTFE composite membrane has a geometric mean matrix modulus to geometric mean matrix tensile strength ratio of at least about 6 and an absolute dimensional change percentage of less than about 1.5%.