Structure and Mechanical Properties of Polycarbonate Modified Clay Nanocomposites

Abstract

Polycarbonate (PC)/modified clay nanocomposites were prepared, in the absence and presence of different amounts of maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (PP-g-MA), by direct melt blending. Their structures, as well as mechanical, morphological and thermal properties, were characterized by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), tensile testing, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The XRD results of the PC/clay nanocomposites showed that they had intercalated structures, although some exfoliation was visible at low clay contents, that the gallery heights of the PC/clay nanocomposites were almost the same, and that some of the clay layers collapsed as a result of modifier decomposition at the high processing temperature. The XRD patterns of the PC/PP-g-MA/clay nanocomposites clearly show less intercalation and more exfoliation with increasing PP-g-MA content. These results were supported by TEM observations. Both the tensile strength and modulus show substantial improvements with both increasing clay and PP-g-MA contents, while the elongation at break substantially decreases, although the presence of PP-g-MA somewhat improves these values. All the nanocomposites have lower thermal stability than pure PC, but the presence of PP-g-MA seems to improve the thermal stability of these samples.

Manipulating selective dispersion of reduced graphene oxide in polycarbonate/nylon 66 based blend nanocomposites for improved thermo-mechanical properties

“…Pure polycarbonate shows a broad peak around 2q ¼ 17 showing the amorphous nature of PC and chain separation. 43 Nylon 66 shows two intense diffraction peaks around 2q ¼ 20. 20 and 2q ¼ 24.04 corresponding to a1 and a2 peaks, which shows the crystalline packing due to inter polymer hydrogen bonding.…”

“…44 However, in binary blend (PN), the characteristic peaks of PC and nylon merge together and can be observed as a broad peak, corresponding to PC along with a less intense sharp peak corresponding to nylon 66. [43][44][45] The broadness of the peak indicates the amorphous nature of the blend. Absence of molecular interaction between PC and nylon is the case of neat blend (as discussed in FTIR section), decreased crystallinity of the blend attributed to penetration of PC chains into a nylon matrix which can disturb the hydrogen bonding interaction within the nylon chains and hence diminished mechanical properties which has also reported in literature.…”

“…Absence of molecular interaction between PC and nylon is the case of neat blend (as discussed in FTIR section), decreased crystallinity of the blend attributed to penetration of PC chains into a nylon matrix which can disturb the hydrogen bonding interaction within the nylon chains and hence diminished mechanical properties which has also reported in literature. 43,44 However, with the incorporation of rGO in binary blend system, the crystalline peak disappeared, which is an indication of further decrease in molecular interaction between nylon chains. This could be due to the distribution of rGO in the blend matrix and preferably in nylon phase.…”

Advances in Polypropylene Based Materials

“…Many reports on the different ways of preparations and characterizations of iPP-mPP/clay nanocomposites have been already published [173][174][175][176][177]. Recently a new approach based on latex technology was introduced, which has been successfully applied for preparation of single-and multi-walled carbon nantotubes/polymer (CNTs) conductive composites in a polymer matrix of choice, with very low percolation threshold and potential application in electronics [178].…”

Structure, micromechanical and magnetic properties of polycarbonate nanocomposites

“…Depending on the intrinsic nature of the nanofiller, some specific properties such as magnetism, electrical conductivity and others can be assigned to polymers. There is a lot of evidence about modification of primary aromatic thermoplastic polyesters, such as polycarbonate (PC), with inorganic anisometric fillers, particularly layered silicates [1], carbon nanotubes [2] and graphene [3]. Considerably less research has been devoted to modification of PC with magnetic nanofillers.…”