Antioxidant functionalized silica-coated TiO2 nanorods to enhance the thermal and photo stability of polypropylene

Abstract

Rutile TiO2 is commonly used as UV shielding agent because of the absorption of UV light. In this research, we integrated the function of rutile TiO2 nanoparticles and antioxidants (AO), and prepared a kind of multifunctional TiO2 nanoparticles with the capacity of both UV absorption and antioxidation. Firstly, rutile TiO2 nanorods were prepared and encapsulated by SiO2 to decrease its photocatalytic activity. Then, antioxidant functionalized silica-coated TiO2 nanorods (AO-KH550-SiO2-TiO2) were successfully synthesized by using aminosilane coupling agent (KH550) as a bridge. By melt blending method, AO-KH550-SiO2-TiO2 were incorporated into PP matrix. The results indicated that AO-KH550-SiO2-TiO2 could improve both photo stability and thermal stability of PP. PP/AO-KH550-SiO2-TiO2 film broke after 220 h UV irradiation, and the broken time of PP/TiO2 film was only 80 h. And the oxidation induction time of PP/AO-KH550-SiO2-TiO2 sample was 4.7 min, while PP/TiO2 sample showed no antioxidation effect. In addition, AO-KH550-SiO2-TiO2 exhibited excellent anti-extraction property. This novel design of AO-KH550-SiO2-TiO2 may open up a new avenue for fabricating multifunctional nanoparticles and facilitating their practical application.