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Nylon 66/clay nanocomposite structure development in a twin screw extruder
Author(s) -
Lin Bin,
Thümen Anne,
Heim HansPeter,
Scheel Gerhard,
Sundararaj Uttandaraman
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.21327
Subject(s) - materials science , plastics extrusion , exfoliation joint , nanocomposite , scanning electron microscope , composite material , differential scanning calorimetry , nylon 6 , mixing (physics) , optical microscope , crystallization , polymer , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , graphene , physics , quantum mechanics , engineering , thermodynamics
Nylon 66/clay nanocomposites were prepared in a Berstorff ZE25A UTX Ultra‐glide corotating twin screw extruder at 270°C. Two types of extruder configurations with different mixing sections were used. One comprised two kneading block sections in the screws (KB only) and the other had a combination of a multi‐process‐element (MPE) section and a kneading block section. Samples at eight different locations along the extruder screw were obtained and analyzed using scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope to examine the morphology development of clay inside nylon down the length of the extruder. It is found that the clay aggregates are quickly broken into smaller tactoids (micron size) and then even much smaller clay bundles (nanometer size) and single clay platelets in the first mixing section. The structure changes in the second mixing section are much less significant. X‐ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of the nanocomposite products showed small, or disappearance of, characteristic XRD (001) peaks, which indicates partial exfoliation, or complete exfoliation, respectively, of clay inside nylon matrix. Differential scanning calorimetry nonisothermal study shows that the crystallization temperature of the nanocomposites has increased around 17°C when compared with neat nylon 66. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2009. © 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers