Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane methods

Broadband dielectric spectroscopy is a powerful tool to investigate polymeric systems (see [38]) including polymer-based nanocomposites with different nanofillers like silica [39], polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) [40-42], and layered silica systems [43-47] just to mention a few. Recently, this method was applied to study the behavior of nanocomposites based on polyethylene and Al-Mg LDH (AlMg-LDH) [48]. The properties of nanocomposites are related to the small size of the filler and its dispersion on the nanometer scale. Besides this, the interfacial area between the nanoparticles and the matrix is crucial for the properties of nanocomposites. Because of the high surface-to-volume ratio of the nanoparticles, the volume fraction of the interfacial area is high. For polyolefin systems, this interfacial area might be accessible by dielectric spectroscopy because polyolefins are nonpolar and, therefore, the polymeric matrix is dielectrically invisible [48]. 

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