Development of polymer composites with high mechanical performance

C. BERNAL

Oxford, Inglaterra

Workshop; Workshop Argentina-Oxford Area Materiales; 2008

Oxford y MINCyT

Polymeric nanocomposites have been an area of intense industrial and academic research for the past 15 years. No matter the measures articles, patents, or research and development fundings worldwide, efforts in polymeric nanocomposites have been growing exponentially. Materials based on nanoparticles (NPs) and polymers are emerging as ideal candidates for a variety of technological applications requiring advantageous electrical, optical, magnetic or mechanical properties. These materials have demonstrated clear potentiality as surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates, photonic materials, high permittivity dielectrics, etc. Main challenges associated with the synthesis of these nanocomposites are found in the control of the dispersion of the nanofiller in the polymeric host. Transfer of the NPs avoiding irreversible aggregation and fine tuning of the geometrical way in which they are arranged are key parameters to attain the desired properties. An alternative to the problem of aggregation is the in-situ generation of NPs directly in the polymeric matrix. However, this procedure generally suffers from a poor control of size, shape and composition of the formed NPs. For this reason, new techniques that allow dispersion of pre-formed NPs in polymers are currently the object of many research efforts. This issue acquires particular relevance when the matrix is a crosslinked polymer due to the versatility and enhanced properties of the resulting nanocomposites and the existence in the literature of only a few approaches dealing with this kind of materials. Since a few years, people from INTEMA have been working in this field acquiring experience in synthesis and characterization of metalic nanoparticles (Pardiñas Blanco, I.; Hoppe, C. E.; López-Quintela, M. A.; Rivas, J. J. Non-Cryst Solids, 353, 826 (2007); Hoppe, C. E.; Lazzari, M.;  Pardiñas-Blanco, I. ; López-Quintela, M. A. Langmuir,22, 7027 (2006)) as well as in inorganic-organic nanocomposites (I.A. Zucchi, M.J. Galante, R.J.J. Williams, Elsa Franchini, Jocelyne Galy, and Jean-François Gérard,, Macromolecules, 40, 1274 (2007); I. A. Zucchi, C. E. Hoppe,  M. J. Galante, R. J. J. Williams, M. A. López-Quintela, L. Mateˇjka, M. Slouf, J. Plesˇtil, Macromolecules, 41, 4895 (2008)). People from INTECIN have been working in the area of mechanical characterization and the study of the structure-properties relationship of this kind of materials (A. Tarapow, C. Bernal, V. Alvarez, Journal of Applied Polymer Science, in press, S.G. Pardo, C. Bernal, M.J. Abad and J. Cano, Journal of Applied Polymer Science, in press, S.G. Pardo, C. Bernal, M.J. Abad, J. Cano and L. Barral Losada, Composite Interfaces, in press). Based on that knowledge, the aim of this plan is, in consequence, to create strategies to develop materials with advanced properties (optical, electrical, magnetic, tribological, mechanical, etc.) by the controlled incorporation of metallic nano structures and oxides in polymeric matrices. To reach this goal, conventional and non-conventional techniques will be used in the synthesis and  functionalization of nano particles, as well as in their dispersion in the polymeric host. Some particular techniques such as x-Ray diffraction (XRD) and fluorescence (WAXS, SAXS, XRF), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), magnetometry, etc. will be neccesary to characterize the obtained materials.