Authors
Amitabh Bansal, Hoichang Yang, Chunzhao Li, Kilwon Cho, Brian C Benicewicz, Sanat K Kumar, Linda S Schadler
Publication date
2005/9/1
Journal
Nature materials
Volume
4
Issue
9
Pages
693-698
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK
Description
The thermomechanical responses of polymers, which provide limitations to their practical use, are favourably altered by the addition of trace amounts of a nanofiller. However, the resulting changes in polymer properties are poorly understood, primarily due to the non-uniform spatial distribution of nanoparticles. Here we show that the thermomechanical properties of ‘polymer nanocomposites’ are quantitatively equivalent to the well-documented case of planar polymer films. We quantify this equivalence by drawing a direct analogy between film thickness and an appropriate experimental interparticle spacing. We show that the changes in glass-transition temperature with decreasing interparticle spacing for two filler surface treatments are quantitatively equivalent to the corresponding thin-film data with a non-wetting and a wetting polymer–particle interface. Our results offer new insights into the role of confinement on …
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A Bansal, H Yang, C Li, K Cho, BC Benicewicz… - Nature materials, 2005