Thermal and Morphological Study of a New Type of Nanocomposites: Functionalized PP / PA / Clay Nanocomposites

H.T. Oyama, Y. Oono and K. Nakayama
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), JP

Keywords: nanocomposite, morphology, polypropylene, polyamide, clay

Abstract:
In the present work we explore a new type of nanocom- posite, in which clay is distributed in a multi-phase polymer system. Our nanocomposites consist of an immiscible polymer pair, polypropylene grafted with maleic anhydride (PP-MAH) and polyamide 6 (PA), mixed with organo- modified synthetic mica. It was shown that (20/80/4) PP-MAH/PA/mica systems indicated that the mica was predominantly localized in the PA matrix in a composite prepared from PP-MAH with the lower MAH concentration. By contrast, in a composite prepared from PP-MAH with higher MAH concentration, the clay was located in both the PA and PP phases as well as at their interface. In this case, the PP dispersed phase, which was thermally unstable, was protected from thermal decomposition both by the wall of clay located at the interface and the dispersed clay in the PP phase. It was also found that copolymers formed in situ at the interface during melt-mixing also contributed to the thermal stability in a temperature range above 400 oC.

Nanotech 2004 Conference Technical Program Abstract