A SCALING PARAMETER FOR DETERMINING EXFOLIATION EFFICIENCY IN NANOCOMPOSITES

摘要

The objective of this research was to identify a scaling parameter which would represent exfoliation efficiency for nanocomposites of montmorillonite and various polymers. Though literature sources often cite transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction-based data, representative sample size and turnaround time for use of such techniques in an industrial setting can be problematic. Some sources have cited the use of modulus as a measure of exfoliation efficiency, and the situations where this measure might be appropriate are discussed. The approach was to convert a measured tensile modulus to some scaled parameter using composite theory as a basis for normalization. Halpin-Tsai theory is used; it has been shown to model polymer-based nanocomposite mechanical response reasonably well. The use of a novel parameter, AR_(eff) was validated for various high modulus and low modulus polymer nanocomposites where data was found in the literature. Error-based calculations were utilized to evaluate the utility of such a parameter as an input for process control. Validation against literature-based standards led to the conclusion that the AR_(eff) parameter has value for plant-based process control applications.