A systematic review about heat shrink materials using nanomaterials for the automotive industry

Heat shrink polymer sleeves are a type of material used in various industries for their ability to contract and fit snugly around objects when heat is applied. These tubes are typically made from materials like polyolefin or fluoropolymers, which have the property of shrinking when heated. Nanomaterials present many applications and its usage is a remarkable tool aiming to improve many properties of materials. Then, many improvements including increase of performance and price reduction may be done due to its unique properties when nanomaterials are used into heat shrink polymer sleeves. This work presents a systematic review of the state of the art on heat-shrinkable materials for the automotive industry. As a methodology, articles from the last 10 years on the subject were selected. The keywords “heat shrink” AND “nanomaterial” AND “tubes OR sleeves” were used in three different databases. “Scopus”, “Web of Science” and “MDPI”. After using the keywords, articles only in English were selected, excluding conference and review articles. As a result, 513 articles were obtained. Those that use polyethylene as a matrix for the heat shrink were selected, being the main scope. As a result, 53 articles were obtained, using exclusion and inclusion criteria. The main nanomaterial used in the studies was montmorillonite with 27 articles, followed by other nanosilicates, such as nanoquartz among others. Graphene and its derivatives also appeared in the research, with 6 articles. Finally, new trends were found for the use of nanofillers and other matrices can also be explored in the future, such as polypropylene mainly.