Thermal degradation behavior of PE/OMMT/EMAA ternary nanocomposites

VALERIA PETTARIN; VICTOR PITA; MARCOS LOPES DIAS; PATRICIA FRONTINI; LILIANA MANFREDI

Zalakaros, Hungary

Conferencia; EUROFILLERS 2007 Functional Fillers for Advanced Applications; 2007

Budapest University of Technology and Economics

In recent years, polymer-clay nanocomposites have attracted much academic and industrial interest because of the anticipated improvements in properties, such as thermal resistance. To promote an improve in thermal resistance it is necessary the intimate interaction between the polymer and the clay platelets. Interest in polyethylene (PE) nanocomposites has emerged in an attempt to improve its performance in engineering applications. But this non-polar polymer is very hydrophobic and lacks suitable interactions with the polar aluminosilicate surface of the clay, even if clay is organically modified. Therefore, addition of an appropriate compatibilizer or chemical modification of the polymer matrix is required as well. Another novel and attractive proposal recently reported in literature to improve clay polymer interaction is to copolymerize the olefin monomer with polar monomers like methacrylic acid or acrylic acid. It has been claimed that the random incorporation of as little as 1 mol% of ionic functionalities along the polymer backbone could enhance interactions between the matrix polymer and the organoclay. Therefore, the use of a commercially available thermoplastic like ethylene methacrylic acid copolymer (EMAA) appears appealing and promising. In this work, we explored the possibility of improve thermal behavior of PE by melt compounding commercial PE, EMAA, and organoclays of different precedence.