A quantitative analysis tool for quality assessment of nanocomposite masterbatches

Abstract

The use of masterbatches for increasing the industry friendliness of polymer nanocomposite production has grown in popularity over the last several years but is lacking a proper method for quality assessment. As the quality of a masterbatch is a critical pre-requisite for obtaining resultant high quality nanocomposites, a quantitative dispersion analysis tool viable and practical for industry use was studied in this paper. Polycarbonate/carbon nanotube masterbatches (10 wt.%) were prepared with a controlled dispersion state and their dispersion quality was assessed with a new quantitative stereological macrodispersion analysis tool. At the same time, the dispersion quality of the resultant two-step nanocomposites (diluted to 1 wt.%) was also assessed with the same method. It was demonstrated that the dispersion quality of the masterbatch has a significant effect on the quality of the second step composites. To confirm this relation, the material properties closely related to the dispersion quality of the masterbatch and diluted composites were studied. Moreover, we show that the use of stereology for the estimation of the bulk agglomeration state of a masterbatch system may yield a significant increase in accuracy over conventional methods.