Effects of vinyltriethoxysilane and maleic anhydride grafted polypropylenes on the morphological, thermal, rheological and mechanical properties of polypropylene/clay nanocomposites

The morphology and properties of polypropylene (PP) /organoclay nanocomposites prepared by melt processing were investigated with a special interest on the different effects of the use of different grafted PP as compatibilizers, i.e. maleic anhydride or silane-grafted species, PP-g-MA or PP-g-Si. When either PP-g-MA or PP-g-Si was added, better improvement of properties was achieved. The addition of PP-g-Si was found to increase the crystallization temperature upon the clay addition in comparison to PP-g-MA. Moreover, the PP-g-MA proved to be more efficient than PP-g-Si. The degree of reinforcement was found to be dependent on the interaction forces between the polymer matrix/clay, which resulted in intercalated/partial exfoliated structures for PP-g-Si while increasing clay content induced a change from exfoliated to intercalated using PP-g-MA, as revealed by transmission electron microscopy observations and X-ray diffraction analysis.