INTEMA   05428
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN CIENCIA Y TECNOLOGIA DE MATERIALES
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
EFFECT OF EXTENSIONAL FLOW ON THE MORPHOLOGY AND FINAL PROPERTIES OF BIODEGRADABLE POLYESTER CLAY NANOCOMPOSITES
Autor/es:
LEANDRO LUDUEÑA; JOSÉ KENNY; ANALÍA VÁZQUEZ; VERA ALVAREZ
Reunión:
Congreso; SAM-CONAMET 2011; 2011
Resumen:
It is known that waste accumulation is actually a serious problem and, so that, the development of environmental friendly polymeric materials has attracted extensive interest [1]. Within them, PCL is one of the best candidates [2]. PCL is hydrophobic, biodegradable, semi-crystalline polyester [3]. Its melting point and glass transition is about 60°C and -60°C, respectively [4]. Nevertheless, to overcome the disadvantages of this polymer, one possibility is to incorporate nanofillers, such us clays, to produce nanocomposites. In this work we propose a route to enhance the mechanical properties of polymer/clay nanocomposites, even when the clay dispersion degree inside the matrix is optimized. It has been widely demonstrated that processing techniques such as film stretching produce the alignment of the polymer chains as a consequence of the induced extensional flow. Extensional flow is also present on the vicinity of the mold wall of injection molded parts which also promotes polymer chains alignment on that regions. On the other hand, there are techniques, such as compression molding, whosedo not produce extensional flow, thus, polymer chains are not preferentially aligned. The hypothesis of this study is that the extensional flow that produce polymer chains alignment can also preferentially align clay platelets improving the mechanical properties of the polymer in that direction. Based on the raised hypothesis, the effect of processing techniques on the morphology, mechanical and thermal properties was studied in the present work .