Tethering with extenders technique

Figure 7.4 (a) Schematic illustration of the tethering with covalent extenders technique. Reprinted from Reference 43, with permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Copyright (2003). (b) Schematic illustration of the site-specific DCC technique. Reprinted from Reference 27, with permission from Elsevier, Copyright (2008). 

Sodium montmorillonite (Na-MMT) was originally modified with pro-tonated amino acids with different numbers of carbon atoms and subsequently swollen with e-caprolactam. Then it underwent polymerization to produce nylon-6 polymer-clay nanocomposite [18]. Later, this technique was also extended to manufacture other thermoplactics. One advantage of this in-situ polymerization technique is the tethering effect, which enables the organic chemical such as 12-aminododecanoic acid (ADA) situated at the surface of the nanoclays to link with nylon-6 polymer chains during polymerization. 

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