Polypropylene Clay Nanocomposites

Recently, research on polymer/layered silicate nanocomposites has received great interest because they often show superior property improvements with respect to pristine polymers or conventional composites [1–11]. The extent enhancement in properties depends on the interfacial interaction between the polymer matrix and the layered silicate layers. There are many types of silicate layers which have been used for the filling in polymers, such as montmorillonite (MMT), hectorite, saponite, laponite, halloysite, and kanemite, etc [9]. Unlike traditional filled polymer systems, nanocomposites require relatively low filler loadings to achieve significant improvements in their properties. These materials are called nanocomposites because of the finely dispersed nanometer thickness clay sheets in the polymer matrix. In addition to their properties, the discovery of simple processing methods such as melt compounding provided a potentially commercially viable method to produce nanocomposite materials on a large scale [12].