Toughening, Thermal Stability, Flame Retardancy, and Scratch–Wear Resistance of Polymer–Clay Nanocomposites

Aravind Dasari; Szu-Hui Lim; Zhong-Zhen Yu; Yiu-Wing Mai

doi:10.1071/CH06418

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Toughening, Thermal Stability, Flame Retardancy, and Scratch–Wear Resistance of Polymer–Clay Nanocomposites

Aravind Dasari ^A , Szu-Hui Lim ^A , Zhong-Zhen Yu ^A and Yiu-Wing Mai ^A ^B

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Centre for Advanced Materials Technology (CAMT), School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

^B Corresponding author. Email: mai@aeromech.usyd.edu.au

Aravind Dasari is a Ph.D. candidate at the CAMT under the guidance of Professor Yiu-Wing Mai. He received his B.Tech. degree in 1999 from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, India, and MS degree in 2003 from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA. His research interests include wear/scratch damage, deformation/fracture mechanisms, and flame retardancy behaviour of polymer nanocomposites.

Szu-Hui (Cynthia) Lim received her B.Eng. (Hons) and M.Phil. degrees in 2001 and 2003, respectively, from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), UK. She is a Ph.D. student at the CAMT, University of Sydney, under the supervision of Professor Yiu-Wing Mai. Her research area is on the structureâ€“property relationships of polymer nanocomposites, particularly their fracture toughness and deformation mechanisms.

Dr Zhong-ZhenYu, Ph.D., received a doctoral degree in process engineering from the National Institute of Polytechnic at Lorraine, France, in 2001. From 1996 to 1999 he was a Research Fellow in the State Key Laboratory of Engineering Plastics, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is currently an Australian Postdoctoral Fellow in the CAMT, University of Sydney. He has published over 60 refereed papers in scientific journals. His research interest focusses on polymer processing, polymer physics, and polymer nanocomposites.

Professor Yiu-Wing Mai, B.Sc. Ph.D. D.Sc. D.Eng. FAA FTSE FHKEng FASME FHKIE FIEAust, is University Chair, Federation Fellow, and Director, Centre for Advanced Materials Technology (CAMT), at the University of Sydney since its inception in 1988. He has a general research interest on the processingâ€“structureâ€“property relationships of a broad range of advanced materials, fracture and fatigue mechanics, and tribological aspects of polymer nanocomposites and superhard coatings. Professor Mai is a highly cited researcher in the field of Materials Science.

Australian Journal of Chemistry 60(7) 496-518 https://doi.org/10.1071/CH06418
Submitted: 6 November 2006 Accepted: 7 March 2007 Published: 9 July 2007

Abstract

Addition of a small percent of clay to polymers improves their stiffness, strength, dimensional stability, and thermal, optical, and barrier properties. Improvements are often attributed to the availability of large numbers of clay nanolayers with tremendous interfacial area. Despite the positive effects from the addition of clay, there are unresolved issues, such as embrittlement, thermal stability, flame retardancy, scratch–wear response of the resultant nanocomposites, and/or achieving a balance between different mechanical and physical properties. In this review, we discuss these issues and the approaches that have been adopted in the expectation of resolving and understanding them, with particular emphasis on our recent and current research.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Australian Research Council (ARC) for continuing support of this project on ‘Polymer Nanocomposites’. Y.-W. Mai and Z.-Z. Yu are, respectively, ARC Australian Federation Fellow and Australian Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney. A. Dasari thanks the Australian Government for an International Postgraduate Research Scholarship Award and the University of Sydney for an International Postgraduate Award to undertake a Ph.D. program in the CAMT. S.-H. Lim also thanks the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) for the SIMTech Overseas Traineeship to undertake a Ph.D. program in the CAMT. We acknowledge members of the Polymer Nanocomposites Group in the CAMT for useful discussions and constructive comments. Finally, permissions from various publishers and authors to reproduce the tables and figures in the manuscript are much appreciated.

References

Toughening, Thermal Stability, Flame Retardancy, and Scratch–Wear Resistance of Polymer–Clay Nanocomposites

Abstract

Acknowledgments

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