“…Many studies investigated the effect of Hal as filler on the mechanical properties, thermal stability, and flame retardancy of polymers (Du et al, 2010a;Liu et al, 2014). These polymers included natural rubber (Guo et al, 2010;Rooj et al, 2010;Ismail et al, 2013), ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) (Ismail et al, 2008;Pasbakhsh et al, 2010), butadiene-styrene rubber (SBR) Guo et al, 2008;Jia et al, 2011), polyamide 6 (PA6) (Marney et al, 2008;Guo et al, 2009), polypropylene (PP) (Du et al, 2006(Du et al, , 2010bNing et al, 2007;Liu et al, 2008Liu et al, , 2009aLecouvet et al, 2013c), polyethylene (PE) Zhao et al, 2014), epoxy resin (Liu et al, 2007;Ye et al, 2007;Deng et al, 2009;Tang et al, 2011), poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate) (Carli et al, 2014), poly(vinylidene fluoride) (Thakur et al, 2014) etc. In general, there are two crucial factors determining the performance of Hal-polymer nanocomposites: a good dispersion of the Hal in the polymer matrix and a desirable interfacial affinity between the Hal and the polymer (Du et al, 2010a;Liu et al, 2014).…”