THE EFFECT OF FEEDING ORDER ON MICROSTRUCTURE AND RHEOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF POLY(BUTYLENE TEREPHTALATE)/EPOXY/CLAY HYBRID SYSTEMS

The main objective of the present work was investigation the effect of feeding order or blending sequence on the microstructure and rheological properties of PBT/epoxy/clay ternarynanocomposites. The hybrid nanocomposite was prepared in a laboratory internal mixer (Brabender).Three different mixing sequences were used: 1) mixing PBT, epoxy and Cloisite 30B in one step; 2)first mixing of PBT and Cloisite 30B then mix them with epoxy; and 3) prepare epoxy/Cloisite 30Bhybrid first, then mix it with PBT to get the final nanocomposites. The good dispersion of clay in thehybrid nanocomposites was confirmed by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and rheological measurement. The results from X-ray diffraction reveal that in all prepared samples presentan intercalated structure. However, feeding order has no appreciable effect on the interlayer spacing ofnanoclay. But from the rheological results it was demonstrated that feeding order has a significant role on the distribution or partitioning of nanoclays in two phases. In sample prepared via blendingsequence (2) the nanoclay was well dispersed and distributed in the nanocomposites, whereas in thesample from blending sequence (3) the nanoclay was trapped in epoxy droplet and due to high affinity between epoxy and nanoclay, it could not migrate to PBT matrix.

کلیدواژه ها:

Rheological Properties ، Morphology ، Epoxy ، PBT ، Nanocomposite