Characterization of nanocomposite laminates fabricated from aqueous dispersion of polyvinylpyrrolidone and l-leucine amino acid modified-montmorillonite

Abstract

This study presents a favorable, simple, safe, fast, and facile approach for the synthesis of potentially ecofriendly biodegradable polymer nanocomposites (NC)s with amino acid modified-montmorillonite (AA-MMT). At first, positively charged chiral amino acid l-leucine was incorporated into the unmodified Cloisite-Na+ montmorillonite (MMT) for organo-modification of MMT by cation-exchange method. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) showed the presence of the organic segment in the modified clay product. Then the dispersion characteristics of AA-MMT in the aforementioned NCs were determined based on polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). The obtained NCs were characterized by different analytical tools including FT-IR, powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The XRD patterns, FE-SEM, and TEM results proposed that the AA-MMT platelets were intercalated with PVP during the process. As evidenced by TGA analysis of the obtained NCs, heat stability was slightly improved as compared with the pure PVP.