Study on factors affecting weatherability of polypropylene materials was carried out with one outdoor weathering test and three accelerated weathering (xenon, metal halide and carbon arc lamps) tests, respectively. The degradations of these materials were highly accelerated with the lowest amount of UV exposure energy in case of the outdoor exposure. It was found that the visible light intensity during irradiations and the existence of talc compound affected the rate of degradation. In addition, it was confirmed that the acid rain accelerated the degradation of PP materials in outdoor exposure.

The thermolysis/distillation of a polyethylene (PE) was studied under an atmospheric pressure and under an extra pressure. One potential application for the products is in the production of liquid fuels. The products were identified by pyrolysis GC/MS. The pressure was controlled by outlet size (around 0.1mm diameter). The product from an outlet of 5mm diameter (under an atmospheric pressure) consists of hydrocarbons with C₁₀-C₄₀. The product from an outlet of 0.1mm diameter consists of hy-drocarbons with C₇-C₁₈, which are similar to those evolved in the initial decomposition. Furthermore, the boiling point ranges of their hydrocarbons are close to those of components of kerosene.

The morphological stability of initially formed polymer particles against air was improved in order to study the initial morphology development with Zigler-Natta catalyst olefin polymerization. The stopped-flow polymerization technique was applied to synthesize initial polymer particles in combination with various quenching and stabilizing procedures. When polymerizing particles were quenched with cold heptane maintained at -65ºC under N₂ or CO₂, the exposure of the formed particles to air caused the fast formation of cracks on the surface, leading to serious reformation of the particle shape. However, when the particles were quenched with cold heptane under CO₂ and washed with heptane containing an appropriate amount of tetrahydrofuran, the particle morphology was significantly stabilized which hardly changed even after 1 h exposure to air. The established stabilizing procedure is highly useful for various characterizations of the initially formed particles.