Films Containing Nanostructures and/or Reactive Scavengers

Several advances have been made in research in the art of tailoring polymeric films to be, variously, (1) much more effective as barriers to diffusion of liquids and gases than they would otherwise be or (2) porous, with pore sizes suitable for filtration of selected gases or liquids. The part of the research addressing the barrier problem has provided a scientific basis for reducing the permeabilities of paints and packaging films to small fractions of the permeabilities of corresponding paints and packaging materials now in common use. In this part of the research, consideration was given to two strategies, described below, that can be used separately or together.