Morphological and Mechanical Characterization of Polyamide 11/Sepiolite Nanocomposites

The objective of the paper is to investigate the effect of organo-modified sepiolite (MSep) on morphology, mechanical, and viscoelastic properties of polyamide-11 (PA11) prepared by melt compounding at 5 wt.%. The study reveals that the addition of both unmodified sepiolite (USep) and organo-MSep to PA11 improves the reinforcement effect of the nanocomposite materials compared to neat PA11, being however more pronounced for the organo-modified one. Indeed, morphological analysis by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) shows a finer dispersion of organo-MSep in PA11 matrix than the unmodified one, which is characterized by a significant presence of fibers aggregates in number and size. Further, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) results are in a good agreement with both tensile properties and TEM observations. © 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH.