Investigation of Polypropylene-Montmorillonite Clay Nanocomposite Films Containing a Pro-degradant Additive

Journal Article · Mon Jan 15 04:00:00 EST 2018 · Journal of Polymers and the Environment

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/S10924-017-0946-0· OSTI ID:22788299

Al-Saleh, M. A.; Al-Samhan, M. M.; Al-Enezi, S. T.; Al-Banna, A. H.; Abraham, G. ^[1]

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1. Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Polymeric Products and Customization Program, Petroleum Research Center (Kuwait)

This paper investigates the performance of polypropylene (PP) incorporated with montmorillonite (MMT) nanoclay, maleic anhydride grafted PP (PP-g-MAH), and pro-degradant additive (TDPA®), which provides additional benefits of increasing biodegradability. A twin-screw extruder was used to compound PP, MMT, PP-g-MAH, and TDPA, and the extruded nanocomposite films were collected for testing, and their mechanical, thermal, barrier, oxo-biodegradability, and morphological properties were evaluated. Tensile test, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), oxygen permeability test, soil burial test, X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis were used to investigate these properties. Increasing MMT content from 1 to 3 phr increases tensile strength and Young’s modulus of the neat PP samples up to ca.45% and 27% respectively. Improvement of thermal properties for neat PP samples was observed by increasing MMT content from 1 to 3 phr. However, at 4 phr MMT content, both mechanical and thermal properties of nanocomposites dropped slightly. For soil buried samples, DSC and TGA results revealed significant changes in the thermal properties for PP samples containing TDPE additive compared to neat PP, clearly confirming the effectiveness of this TDPA additive in promoting oxo-biodegradation process of PP. Similarly weight loss evaluation result shows that about 4% weight loss for sample (PP/TD), which is PP and TDPA blend only, compared to neat PP. However, increasing MMT content from 1 to 4 phr slightly reduced weight loss of PP from 3.5 to 1.5%, respectively, for 6 month soil exposure period, which indicates that increasing MMT content was detrimental to the degradation process. For higher MMT content, the oxygen permeability of PP nanocomposites was decreased by 46% of the corresponding values for neat PP. The XRD and TEM results confirmed the exfoliation structure of the nanocomposites. The morphological change after soil burial test was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

• OSTI ID: 22788299
• Journal Information: Journal of Polymers and the Environment, Journal Name: Journal of Polymers and the Environment Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 26; ISSN 1566-2543
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
ANHYDRIDES
BIODEGRADATION
CALORIMETRY
MONTMORILLONITE
MORPHOLOGICAL CHANGES
NANOCOMPOSITES
OXYGEN
PERMEABILITY
POLYPROPYLENE
SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
SOILS
TENSILE PROPERTIES
THERMAL BARRIERS
THERMAL GRAVIMETRIC ANALYSIS
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
THIN FILMS
TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
X-RAY DIFFRACTION