Study on polyamide 12/clay nanocomposites by melt-intercalation process

Nanocomposites are multiphase materials where at least one of the constituent has one dimension less than 100 nm. For its characteristic properties nanocomposites are nowadays increasingly being used in technique, and certainly will take a significant share in materials production in the future. Polymer layered silicates are an important class of nanocomposite materials. These structures may be formed by annealing layered silicate particles, whose surfaces have been chemically modified to render them organophilic, with a polymer melt. This process is called melt-intercalation. During intercalation, polymer molecules leave the bulk melt and enter the galleries between the silicate layers. The paper deals with preparation of polyamide 12/clay nanocomposites by a melt-intercalation process. We studied several types of modified and unmodified montmorillonite clays in various concentrations. The influence of compounding conditions, screw rotation speed and compounding time were investigated too. The aim of the investigation was to determine the optimum combination of compounding parameters which assure satisfy level of intercalation and uniform distribution of nanofillers, and in the same time does not lead to thermal degradation of nanocomposite.