Systematic Study of the Nanostructures of Exfoliated Polymer Nanocomposites

4Citations
Citations of this article
5Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

High-performance bioinspired materials have shown rapid development over the last decade. Examples are brick-and-mortar hierarchical structures, which are often achieved via solvent evaporation. Although good properties are claimed, most systems are composed of stacked or intercalated platelets. Exfoliation is a crucial step to give ultimate anisotropic properties, e.g., thermal, mechanical, and barrier properties. We propose a general framework for all the various types of micro-scale structures that should be distinguished for 2D filler nanocomposites. In particular, the exfoliated state is systematically explored by the immobilization of montmorillonite platelets via (gelatin) hydrogelation. Scattering techniques were used to evaluate this strategy at the level of the particle dispersion and the regularity of spatial arrangement. The gelatin/montmorillonite exfoliated nanostructures are fully controlled by the filler volume fraction since the observed gallery d-spacings perfectly fall onto the predicted values. Surprisingly, X-ray analysis also revealed short- and quasi long-range arrangement of the montmorillonite clay at high loading.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Espíndola, S. P., Zlopasa, J., & Picken, S. J. (2023). Systematic Study of the Nanostructures of Exfoliated Polymer Nanocomposites. Macromolecules, 56(18), 7579–7586. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.3c00575

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free