Dendritic polyamidoamine-grafted halloysite nanotubes for fabricating toughened epoxy composites

Well-dispersed epoxy resin/halloysite nanotubes composites were prepared by functionalization of the HNTs surfaces using polyamidoamine generation-3 (HNTs-G3.0). A series of modified halloysite nanotubes with different generations of dendritic polyamidoamine (PAMAM) were prepared via a divergent synthetic process by repeating the Michael addition of methyl acrylate to superficial amino groups and the amidation of the resulting esters with ethylenediamine. The products were then characterized by means of FTIR, XPS, XRD and TGA. The results showed that PAMAM polymers are successfully grafted on the surface of HNTs and the grafting percentage of HNTs grafted with polyamidoamine generation-3 (HNTs-G3.0) is 27.21 %. The grafted PAMAM has no effect on the crystalline structure of HNTs. The morphology, interfacial interaction and mechanical properties of epoxy composites were investigated and correlated with the surface functionalization of HNTs. The observations of scanning electronic microscopy and transmission electron microscopy images showed that HNTs-G3.0 exhibited better dispersion than the p-HNTs. The interfacial interaction of the epoxy composites was studied by FTIR and DMA. It was found that dendritic polyamidoamine graft can effectively improve the interfacial interaction of the epoxy composites. With the improvement in particle dispersion and interfacial interaction through polyamidoamine generation-3 grafting, an increase of impact strength and fracture toughness was achieved, accompanied by enhancements of flexural strength and modulus. In particular, the impact strength and fracture toughness (K (IC)) of composites with polyamidoamine generation-3 grafted HNTs were about 160 and 20 % higher than the values of functionalization halloysite nanotube system.