Preparation and thermal-mechanical characterization of nanoclay-unsaturated polyester composites

Recently polymer nanocomposites have attracted great interest as much as in industry as in research laboratories, due to they often show remarkable improvement in their mechanical and thermal properties when are compared with the virgin polymers. Among nanocomposites, nanoclay-reinforced polymers have been widely studied, specifically, those formed by a thermosetting polymer matrix, like unsaturated polyester crosslinked resin reinforced with layered silicates, like montmorillonite. In this work we have prepared nanocomposites formed by an isophtalic unsaturated polyester crosslinked resin (UP) reinforced with different contents (2-10 wt%) of organic modified montmorillonite (OMMT). The UP/OMMT nanocomposites have been prepared following different procedures and the structural characterization has been carried out by using X-ray diffraction (XRD). In all the cases an increase of the d-spacing between layers of the OMMT has been detected. The objective of this study is to analyze the thermal and mechanical behaviour of nanocomposites. For all of the reinforced systems, the glass transition temperatures values, Tg, obtained by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and dynamic-mechanical thermal analysis, (DMTA) are higher than the corresponding ones to neat UP. On the other hand, the OMMTP mechanical behaviour has been evaluated by DMTA and by tensile tests. Both techniques reveal an increase in Young modulus, however, a decrease of the tensile strength is observed in all the reinforced systems.