Study On The Preparation And Dyeing Properties Of Polypropylene/Clay Nanocomposites

In the 80's years, the researchers of TOYOTA synthesized a new kind of composite material. It shows a dispersion of very small particles on nanoscopic level into a polymer matrix. The filler was a clay mineral and the polymer was polyamide-6. These materials with a relatively low rate of filler (less then 5 % in mass) were distinguished by the developed mechanical properties compared with pristine polymer. Thereafter, up to now, many researchers have worked in the synthesis and the characterization of such kind of materials, varying the polymers and the fillers. In 2001, the researchers of GEMTEX proved the possibility of adapting the nanocomposite materials into textile. Now increasing the thermal stability of organically modified layered silicates is one of the key points in the successful technical application of polymer-layered silicate nanocomposites on the industrial scale. This project of the final part of the study included three parts related to the study on the preparation and dyeing properties of polypropylene/clay nanocomposites.The first part consisted in synthesizing an imidazolium salt, and using this salt to synthesize a modified clay which has a better thermal stability than the conventional clays, and then characterizing the salt and the clay by thermal analyses and physical-chemical analyses, TGA and IR spectroscopy. The result of IR spectroscopy showed that the imidazolium is well fixed onto the MMT. And the curve of TGA proved that the thermal stability is well improved since the temperature at 10 % of weight lost increased 100℃compared to other conventional clays.The second part consisted in extruding and spinning the polypropylene with different clays and characterizing the nanofilled filaments by thermal analyses, TGA and DSC. The degree of crystallinity of polypropylene in the mixture determined by the DSC was lower than that of PP+PPgMA because of the existence of clay. The degree of crystallinity of PP+PPgMA+B107 was the lowest which corresponded to the best performance of dyeing. The third part corresponded to the dye the nanofilled multifilaments to deduce the property of tinctorial affinity by spectrophotometer and colorimeter. All the results of dyeing indicated that the PP+PPgMA+B107 had the best performance of dyeing compared to its low percentage of clay in the filament and its low concentration of modifier of clay. This means that the B107 was well intercalated and exfoliated into the polypropylene, and it well fixed the disperse dye and it had the best affinity of disperse dye.