Investigation of Structure and Mechanical Behavior of Polyamide 6/ZnO and Polyamide 6/Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> Nanocomposites

Abstract

In this work we investigate mechanical properties and structure of PA6/ZnO and PA6/Al2O3 nanocomposites to understand the effect of different nanoparticles on the polymer matrix. Mechanical experiment results show that the mechanical reinforcement effect after loading ZnO nanoparticles is better than that of loading Al2O3 nanoparticles. At 10% ZnO loading, the elastic modulus increases to about two times of that of pure PA6, and the yield stress increases about 30%. And the elongation at break has no obvious decrease even at high ZnO loading. In order to understand the reason of better mechanical reinforcement after incorporating ZnO nanoparticles, microstructure and crystallization behavior of the samples were investigated. The results indicate that the better reinforcement of mechanical properties after loading ZnO was attributed to enhanced interfacial adhesion between ZnO nanoparticles and PA6 matrix at high ZnO content.