Short Review on Recent Trends in Dispersing Nanoclay Particles into Polymer Matrices Using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

Polymer/clay nanocomposites are a new class of emerging materials in the last decades.Clays is used as filler due to their availability and good properties. In the low content of filler they improve barrier and mechanical properties. Nanocomposite developments have already been introduced for the majority of engineering plastics. Utilizing organomodified montmorillonite (MMT) (commonly called ‗‗Nanoclay'') to reinforce polymer-based composites have raised much attention to academic and industrial sectors due to the addition of small amount of nanoclay could considerably enhance the mechanical properties of pristine polymers. The aim of this paper is to give short review on recent trends in dispersing nanoclay particles into polymer matrices using supercritical carbon dioxide.It also focuses on properties enhancement reported by different researchers and the scCO2 process was reviewed future challenges for this emerging technology in engineering applications.