Preparation And Characterization Of Polyurethane Nanocomposite Foam

As an important plastic material, polyurethane foam is widely used in industry, building and many other aspects. Recently, the Development Trend of polyurethane foam is older products modification, new product exploitation and so on. The development of polyurethane foam, and the properties, preparation, development and application of Nanotechnology (nanometer), were introduced in this review, especially the structure, intercalation theories and the activation of kaolinite, as well as the application of kaolinite on preparation of kaolinite/organic composites were also introduced. At last the background and ideal of our research were gained from this review.In this paper, firstly, five polyurethane nanocomposite foams were prepared based on five nano-particles:SiO2, TiO2, ZnO, Attapulgite and Kaolinite. The nano-composites were obtained by in situ polymerization of isocyanates, polyether polyol and nano-particles. The preparation process was affected by the introduced nanopartical, especially the catalyst. These five polyurethane nanocomposite foams characterization were conducted using X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results confirmed that these nanocomposites with a nano-morphology, at the same time many properties of composites such as mechanical properties, thermodynamic performances were modified markedly. At the same time, the results show that the thermodynamic performance of polyurethane/clay nanocomposite foam was the best in these five nanocomposites.A novel and facile approach for the preparation of exfoliated/delamination kaolinite was reported in this work. Kaolinite was put into a globe mill containing dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) and mechanochemically activated by grinding for periods of time, and then samples activated were treated for several hours at 120℃to get the precursors of kaolinite. The resulting precursors were characterized by using X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Experimental results indicate that the method based on globe mill can greatly shorten the intercalation time, meanwhile, the clay layers are well exfoliated/delamination with the help of mechanochemical effect. At the same time the clear shift of the energy of the A1 2p peak in the treated samples indicated that the DMSO molecules are bonded to the A12(OH)4 octahedral sheets by hydrogen bond. There is potential for the exfoliated/delamination kaolinite prepared by this facile method to be used in industrial manufacturing of specialty materials.A novel intercalation nanocomposite based on polyurethane (PU)/kaolinite was prepared by a simple in-situ, one step polymerization in the presence of organically modified kaolinite (layered silicates). The crude kaolinite (Ko) was firstly modified with dimethylsulfoxide-methanol systems by mechanical chemical method, polyether polyol was then mixed with kaolinite by mechanical chemical method also. The polyurethane/kaolinite nanocomposite foam was characterized by means of X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, and thermal gravimetric analysis. Experimental results indicate that the clay layers of kaolinite in nanocomposites are well distributed and delaminated. The thermal properties, chemical resistance, biological resistance of the nanocomposites are improved in a large extent.Finally, the industrial test of polyurethane/kaolinite nanocomposite foam was put into practice in LanZhou SanXin foams factory successfully. The product was characterized in China supervision and test center for product quality of aeronautical 510 research institute. At the same time, the economic cost of organically modified kaolinite and polyurethane/kao nanocomposite foam was considered.