Title
Sepiolite needle-like clay for PA6 nanocomposites: An alternative to layered silicates?
Author
Bilotti, E.
Zhang, R.
Deng, H.
Quero, F.
Fischer, H.R.
Peijs, T.
TNO Industrie en Techniek
Publication year
2009
Abstract
This paper presents a study of polyamide 6/sepiolite clay nanocomposite, obtained by melt compounding in a mini twin-screw extruder, and characterised in terms of morphology (SEM and TEM analysis) and mechanical properties of the composite, along with their crystallinity and crystal structure of the semi-crystalline matrix. The tensile test results are interpreted in terms of two micromechanical models: the Halpin-Tsai model for stiffness and the Pukanszky equation for yield stress, and compared with the results on polyamide 6/smectite montmorillonite (MMT) clay nanocomposites from selected publications. This comparison between sepiolite (fibre-like shape, 1D) and smectite (platelet-like, 2D) clays offers an interesting model-study on the effect of nanofiller shape and orientation on final mechanical properties. It shows that 1D fillers are expected to provide better reinforcement in the case of oriented systems, whereas platelets should be more efficient in isotropic composites. It was demonstrated that sepiolite has a higher reinforcing efficiency (higher effective aspect ratio) than MMT in PA6 and a good filler-matrix interface, due to strong hydrogen bonds between silanol groups on the sepiolite surface and amide groups of PA6. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Subject
Materials
Nanoclay
Nanocomposites
Amide groups
Crystallinities
Filler-matrix
Halpin-Tsai model
Isotropic composites
Layered silicate
Melt-compounding
Micromechanical model
Montmorillonite clay
Nanofiller
Needle-like
SEM and TEM
Semicrystallines
Sepiolite clay
Silanol groups
Smectites
Tensile tests
Twin screw extruders
Amides
Aspect ratio
Blood substitutes
Crystal structure
Fillers
Geologic models
Hydrogen bonds
Mechanical properties
Nanostructured materials
Platelets
Reinforcement
Silicate minerals
Tensile testing
Two dimensional
Yield stress
Clay minerals
mathematical model
mechanical property
morphology
nylon 6
stiffness
synthetic polyamide
tensile property
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4930a9bc-04d1-42a0-9b36-cd3e2a279ffc
TNO identifier
242572
ISSN
0266-3538
Source
Composites Science and Technology, 69 (15-16), 2587-2595
Document type
article