Synthesis and characterization of poly(St-co-DVB)/montmorillonite nanocomposites by suspension polymerization

Abstract

Poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene)/organic montmorillonite (OMMT) nanocomposites were prepared by suspension polymerization. OMMT was prepared by ion exchange method between sodium montmorillonite (SMMT) and cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) in an aqueous solution. The character and structure of OMMT was revealed by XRD and FT-IR. The microstructure of polymer/OMMT nanocomposites was characterized by XRD, TEM and SEM. The thermal stability of polymer/OMMT nanocomposites was studied by TG and DTG. Also the effect of the amount of OMMT and divinylbenzene (DVB) on the thermal stability of polymer/OMMT nanocomposites has been discussed in this paper. It was observed that the crosslinked polymer/clay nanocomposites exhibited better thermal stability than pure polystyrene and polystyrene/clay nanocomposites under the experimental conditions.