Sharif Digital Repository

Composites of phenol-formaldehyde (PF) resin with Closite Na+ and Closite 30B up to 20 wt% loadings were prepared by solution mixing. Tensile testing showed that both pristine and organically modified clays increased considerably the mechanical properties of PF resin at 2.5 wt% loading followed by marginal improvement or even sacrificed properties at high loadings. DMA and DSC analyses suggested development of a highly crosslinked and well adhered interphase around silicate layers. A novel three-phase model considering the interphase region was proposed to predict composite modulus. The model was successfully employed to correlate morphological characteristics and mechanical properties of... 

The objective of the present study is to predict Young's modulus of polymer-layered silicate nanocomposites (PLSNs) containing fully intercalated structures. The particular contribution of this article is to consider the changes in structural parameters of different intercalated morphologies in vicinity of each other. These parameters include aspect ratio of intercalated stacks, number of silicate layers per stack, d-spacing between the layers, modulus of the gallery phase, and volume fraction of each intercalated morphology. To do this, the effective particle concept has been employed and combined with the Mori-Tanaka micromechanical model. It has been shown that the simultaneous effects of... 

Ternary nanocomposites of polypropylene/polyamide 6/layered silicate were prepared through three different processing procedures. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy were used to study the nanostructure of the samples, and tensile and impact strength measurements were conducted to assess the mechanical properties. It was shown that processing route has a significant effect on the delamination of clay platelets. Fully exfoliated nanostructure was achieved through a certain two-step processing route. Compatibilization of the blends affected microstructure as well as nanostructure. Mechanical properties were affected by changing the processing route, to a great degree.... 

Polymer-layered silicate nanocomposites have been observed to demonstrate enhanced mechanical properties particularly at low weight fractions of silicate. Experimental and theoretical investigations reveal that numerous structural parameters strongly influence the modulus of such nanocomposites. A multiscale micromechanical model is developed which considers a wide range of different affecting parameters including the particle aspect ratio, the number of silicate layers per stack, the d-spacing ratio between the layers, the penetration of polymer chains along silicate sheets, the intercalation feature, and the particle volume fraction. The developed model illustrates the accuracy and... 

In this paper, preparation of polyethylene/clay nanocomposites (PECNC) by in situ Ziegler-Natta catalyst polymerization was investigated. A Ziegler-Natta catalyst was first supported on montmorillonite (MMT) type clay and subsequently used for polymerizing ethylene. Clay and clay supported catalyst were characterized by Fourier transmission infrared and ICP method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy results show that silicate layers of the mineral clay in prepared nanocomposites were intercalated and exfoliated in the polymeric matrix. Differential scanning calorimetry results show that the prepared nanocomposites have higher crystallization temperature than pure... 

This work aims to investigate the structure-property relationship in ternary nanocomposites consisting of polypropylene as the matrix, nanoclay as the reinforcement and polyamide 6 as the intermediate phase. In this regard, composites of polypropylene/organoclay, polyamide/organoclay, blends of polypropylene/polyamide, and ternary nanocomposites of polypropylene/polyamide/layered silicate with and without compatibilizer were produced via melt compounding. Nanostructure was investigated by wide-angle X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Scanning electron microscopy was employed to study the microstructure. Modulus of elasticity and yield strength were measured by uniaxial...