Effect of extrusion conditions and post-extrusion techniques on the morphology and thermal/mechanical properties of Polycaprolactone/clay nanocomposites

LEANDRO LUDUEÑA; JOSÉ KENNY; ANALÍA VÁZQUEZ; VERA ALVAREZ

JOURNAL OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD

Lugar: London; Año: 2014 vol. 48 p. 2059 - 2070

0021-9983

The effect of processing conditions and technique on the thermal and mechanical properties of the pure polycaprolactone (PCL) and 5wt.% PCL/organo-modified clay nanocomposites was studied. The different materials were prepared by double-screw micro-extruder changing barrel temperatures, screw rotation speed and resident time. It was demonstrated by gas permeation chromatography, X-ray diffractometry, electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and tensile tests that the extrusion parameters have negligible effect on the molecular weight of the matrix, on the morphology of the nanocomposites and on the final thermal and mechanical properties of the matrix and their nanocomposites. Finally, mechanical properties of the nanocomposites could be improved by post-processing techniques in which extensional flow produced clay platelets alignment in the tensile tests direction.