Study On The Preparation, Morphology And Properties Of Reactive Organic Modified Clay/Polymer Nanocomposites

The preparation, characterization and properties of reactive organically-modified clays and their application in the preparation of clay nanocomposites were studied. In this paper, four reactive organically-modified clays were prepared from the reactions of trimethylamine with the corresponding oligomers, which were synthesized by free-radical polymerization of a mixture of styrene, vinylbenzylchloride and different polar monomers, including acrylamide, acrylonitrile, acrylic acid, and methyl methacrylate. These reactive organically-modified clays were characterized by IR, TGA, XRD and TEM. XRD traces and TEM images have shown that these modified clays are of well-intercalated or exfoliated structures. Furthermore, TGA data indicated that these polymerically-modified clays have high enough thermal stability for the preparation of nanocomposites by melt blending. To test the reactivities of these modified clays, PA6/organically modified clay nanocomposites and PC/organically modified clay nanocomposites were obtained by melt blending. The properties and morphologies were characterized. The experimental results showed that the mechanical properties of both PA6 and PC/organically-modified clay samples were improved. FT-IR traces have shown that the reactions have happened between polymers and the modified clays, XRD traces and TEM images have shown that these modified clays are exfoliated in the polymer matrix with the help of reaction.Based on the data, the conclusions should be made that the reactive organically-modified clays were obtained via copolymer with styrene and certain polar monomers, and the exfoliated polymer/organically-modified clay nanocomposites could be achieved by melt blending.