Grafting of sodium montmorillonite with γ-aminopropyltriethoxysilane in ethanol/water dispersing medium

Abstract

In this work, silane grafted sodium montmorillonite was synthesized by γ-aminopropyltriethoxysilane to make it compatible with the organic polymer. The grafting reaction was examined by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), 29Si NMR, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The appearance of new peaks for FTIR results confirmed the presence of the grafted silane onto the clay platelets. Besides, 29Si NMR results revealed another extra resonance which belongs to new bonds formed at clay edges and on the internal nanoclay platelets. TGA results confirmed that by increasing the amount of silane, the amount of grafting silane also increased which was shown by increase of mass loss. DTG results showed that by increasing the amount of aminosilane used for modification, the amount of intercalated silane is also increased.