Nylon 6-clay hybrid mechanical properties

Mechanical properties of nylon 6-clay hybrid. J. Mater. Res. 1993, 8 (5), 1185-1189. 

Principia Partners (2005) Polymer Nanocomposites Create Exciting Opportunities in the Plastics Industry Updated Study from Principia. Retrieved on February 10,2011 from Special Chem at http //specialchem4polymers.com/resources/latest/displaynews.aspx id=l%5 Kojima Y, Usuki A, Kawasumi M et al (1993) Mechanical properties of nylon 6-clay hybrid. J Mater Res 8 1185-1189... 

Y. Kojima, A. Usuki, M. Kawasumi, A. Okada, Y. Fukushima, T. Kurauchi, O. Kamigaito, Mechanical properties of nylon 6-clay hybrid. Journal of Materials Research 8 (1993) 1185-1189. 

Kojima, Y., Usuki, A., Kawasumi, M. and Okada, A. (1993b), Mechanical properties of Nylon-6 clay hybrid. Journal of Materials Research, Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 1185-1189. 

Usuki A, Koiwai A, Kojima Y, Kawasumi M, Okada A, Kurauchi T and Kamigaito 0 (1995) Interaction of nylon-6 clay surface and mechanical properties of nyIon-6 clay hybrid, J Appl Polym Sci 55 119-123. 

Polymer-clay nanocomposites (PCN) are a class of hybrid materials composed of organic polymer matrices and organophilic clay fillers, introduced in late 1980s by the researchers of Toyota (Kawasumi, 2004). They observed an increase in mechanical and thermal properties of nylons with the addition of a small amount of nano-sized clays. This new and emerging class of pol miers has found several applications in the food and non-food sectors, such as in constmction, automobiles, aerospace, military, electronics, food packaging and coatings, because of its superior mechanical strength, heat and flame resistance and improved barrier properties (Ray et al., 2006). 

This process creates a polymer-layered silicate nanocomposite with the either a delaminated hybrid structure or an intercalated one. The intercalated structure, which forms when the mass fraction of clay is greater than 20%, is characterized by a well ordered multilayer with spacing between the silicate layers of only a few nanometers. The delaminated hybrid structure, which forms when the mass fraction of clay is less than 20%, contains the silicate layers individually dispersed in the polymer matrix. The thermal, mechanical and FR properties of nylon-6 clay nanocomposite with only 5% of clay fraction show excellent improvements over nylon 6. In the paper by Gilman it was pointed out that cone calorimeter data show the reduction of RHR (max.) by 63% in a nylon,6/clay nanocomposite containing a clay mass fraction of only 5% [233]. This nanocomposite has the same heat of combustion as the pure nylon-6. 

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