Mechanical and thermal properties of modified kaolin clay/unsaturated polyester nanocomposites

The improvement in thermal and mechanical properties of Nanocomposites prepared with unsaturated polyester (UP) as polymer matrix and various loadings of amino-modified nano kaolinite clay as filler has been studied. Mechanical stirring and ultra-sonication resulted in better dispersion of the clay. For curing polyester resin, cobalt naphthenate was used as accelerator and MEKP as initiator. Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) was carried out to find storage and loss modulus. Thermal stability was found through thermogravimetric analysis and the evaluation of structure and morphology of the nanocomposites were done through XRD, SEM, and TEM. Nanocomposite with 3 phr of amino modified clay has shown higher storage modulus and an improved thermal stability of UP/clay nanocomposites has been established. Tensile strength and toughness of the composite have been found to achieve maximum values at 1 phr of clay and the storage modulus has had an improvement of 38% compared to neat UPR. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.