Molecular Mobility in Polycyanurate/Clay Nanocomposites Studied by Dielectric Techniques

Abstract

Nanocomposites, having neat polycyanurate networks (PCN) and modified by polytetramethylene glycol polycyanurate networks (PCN/PTMG) as matrices and montmorillonite (MMT) as filler, were prepared using thermal polymerization, and studied with respect to polymerization kinetics, morphology and in particular, molecular mobility. In order to investigate the influence of the clay modifier and the way of preparation two types of commercial MMT were used, while the mixing was obtained mechanically and by using ultrasound. IR-spectroscopy, Wide Angle X- ray Scattering (WAXS) and dielectric techniques including Dielectric Relaxation Spectroscopy (DRS) and Thermally Stimulated Depolarization Current (TSDC) techniques were used to provide information on polymerization kinetics, morphology and molecular mobility, respectively.