A New Family of Intercalated Clays for Clay/Polymer Nanocomposites

摘要

Over the past decade a new family of materials called nanocomposites have emerged as potentially important commercial composites for engineering and packaging applications. These materials have normally contained a smectite clay as the nanosize component of the composite. These materials are naturally occurring minerals that exhibit large aspect ratios and one dimension in the nanometer range. These minerals however, are normally very hydrophilic and, therefore must be surface modified in order to render them compatible with most polymers or monomers. This paper reports a series of new surface modified clays for use in nanocomposites and some application to nanocomposites.