Studies On UP-Sepiolite Nanocomposites

Polymer nanocomposites are novel composites due to the excellent properties , which have been studied for more than 10 years, but recently that natural nano-fibers improve polymer's properties are a new research direction.Sepiolite nano-fibers are inorganic minerals in our country, which are not only non-poisonous and harmless clays, but also are rich in resource and have certain exploitation and utilization values. In many cases, sepiolite nano-fibers are superior to general materials in mechanical ,chemical and physical properties through quantum effect, nano-scale size confinement and predominance of interfacial phenomena. Therefore sepiolite nano-fibers have tremendous prospects .Sepiolite was dispersed with a unique fiberization method, then was organically modified with quaternary amines. The microstructure was characterized by FT-IR and SEM. The results show modified sepiolite is an organical sepiolite nano-fiber.UP(unsaturated polyester)/sepiolite nanocomposites were prepared by dispersing organically modified sepiolite nano-fiber in UP resin and subsequently cross-linked using methylethyl ketene peroxide catalyst and styrene. The microstructure and modality of the UP/sepiolite nanocomposites were characterized by FT-IR and SEM. Results indicate that sepiolite nano-fibers were dispersed unanimously in the UP.The mechanical properties, hardness and thermal properties of the composites were studied in the thesis. Compared to pure UP, the impact strength and the hardness of nanocomposites with about 5wt% fibrous sepiolite increases by 36.66% and 20%, respectively. At the same time, the thermal stability of nanocomposites were improved .These data show that the nanocomposites are toughened and strengthened.