A Farmany - PhD student, Department of Polymer Processing, Iran Polymer & Petrochemical Institute, P.O. Box: ۱۴۹۶۵-۱۱۵,Tehran, Iran.
M Esfandeh - Professor, Department of Polymer Processing, Iran Polymer & Petrochemical Institute, P.O. Box: ۱۴۹۶۵-۱۱۵,Tehran, Iran.
S.M Mirabedini - Professor, Department of Polymer Processing, Iran Polymer & Petrochemical Institute, P.O. Box: ۱۴۹۶۵-۱۱۵.Tehran, Iran

In the present research, the effect of clay nanoparticles’ addition on the thermal stability and hardness of thehybrid syntactic foams was studied. Morphology of the foam samples containing different wt % clay nanoparticles was determined using SAX. The thermal stability of foam samples containing 5 wt % of microspheres and 0, 1, 2 and 3 wt % of clay nanoparticles was evaluated using TGA. Rockwell hardness of samples was also measured according to ASTM D 785. The SAX analysis revealed exfoliated morphology for nano-clay platelets in foam sample containing 1 wt % nanoparticles, and it was changed to intercalated morphology, by increasing nanoparticles’ content. TGA results and hardness measurements revealed enhancing thermal stability and hardness of 1 wt % nano-clay embedded foamsamples. Further increasing nanoparticles’ content had no significant effect on hardness value changes; however TGA study showed decreasing of thermal stability –still over than neat sample - with increasing nano-clay content.

Thermal Stability, Clay Nanoparticles, Polyester Syntactic Foams, PMMA Microspheres