Study On The Preparation And Properties Of Polymer Clay Nanocomposites

Here two types of polymer/clay nanocomposites including Epoxy/clay nanocomposite and Unsatured polyester / clay nanocomposite were studied. Suitable ion exchanger was used to modify the interface of the clay, and then the Epoxy / Clay nanocomposite and the UP / Clay nanocomposite were produced by using the organic-clay as the reinforcement, meanwhile the fom-tation mechanism of the Epoxy/Clay nanocomposite was discussed. The ion-exchangers include: octylamine, decylamine, dodecylarnine, hexadecyl- amine, octadecylamine, hexadecyl trimethyl an,monium lxomide, and aciylarnide. The basal spacing(d~t) of the clays which were modified by hexadecylamine have been expanded from 1 .3605nm to 1 .9885nm,and that of the clays which were modified by hexadecylamine and acrylamide have expanded from 1 .3605nm to 1 .7380nm. The properties including mechanical property and thermal stability have been obviously improved. The impact strength of the Epoxy/Clay nanocomposite have been increased by 122% , and the HDT have been improved from 79.4t to 89.2C.The impact strength of the UP/Clay nanocomposite increased by 220% , the tensile strength of it increased by 1 2%,and the HDT have been increased from76.3 C to 86.1 C. Meanwhile the microstrutures of the clays and of the nanocomposites were characterized by XRD,TEM and FT-IR. XRD patterns of the clay and the composites show that the basal spacing(d~1) of the organic-clay have been enlarged obviously, the gallery of the clays in the composites has been expanded. And the result of the TEM photos show that the dispersion of the clay in the polymer has approached to nanoscale. The curing kinetics of the Epoxy/Clay nanocomposite has been studied by means of the non-isothermal DSC. As a result, the apparent activation energy of the Epoxy/Clay is 56.21 KJ/mol, and the order of reaction is 0.9. The formation mechanism of the Epoxy/Clay nanocomposite were studied, according to the results of caculation, the power of forming the Epoxy/Clay nanocomposite lies in the heat of curing reaction.