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Fractal analysis of polypropylene composite filled with nano‐calcium carbonate
Author(s) -
Yuan Shaoyan,
Xu Hong,
Gu Hongchen
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.27718
Subject(s) - materials science , polypropylene , composite material , calcium carbonate , dispersion (optics) , filler (materials) , fractal dimension , composite number , particle size , nano , fractal , particle (ecology) , nanocomposite , particle size distribution , chemical engineering , mathematics , optics , mathematical analysis , oceanography , physics , geology , engineering
Polypropylene (PP) and nano‐calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ) composites were prepared by melt mixing in a corotating twin‐screw extruder. Transmission electron microscopy study and particle size analysis revealed the dispersion and the size distribution of CaCO 3 in PP. With the increase of loading of filler, CaCO 3 nanoparticles densely aggregated together and the dispersion of filler became bad. The fractal dimensions of the composites were determined using fractal concept. The fractal dimensions of D and D k described the irregularities of the shape of an object and the distributions of particle populations, respectively. The D and D k values were influenced by the content of filler, i.e., the D values increased, and the D k values decreased with the increase of loading of filler. When the loading of filler was low, the values of D and D k of PP composites differ slightly than the counterparts of PP/PP‐ g ‐MA (50 wt %) blend. For 20 wt %, they were almost identical. This fact showed that the fractal dimension was correlated with the dispersion. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008