Abstract
This study investigated ageing-resistant properties of carboxyl-terminated polyester (polyethylene glycol terephthalate) composites modified with nanoscale titanium dioxide particles (nano-TiO2). The nano-TiO2 was pretreated by a dry coating method, with aluminate coupling agent as a functional grafting additive. The agglomeration resistance was evaluated, which exhibited significant improvement for the modified nanoparticles. Then, the effects of the modified nano-TiO2 on the crosslinking and ageing-resistant properties of the composites were studied. With a real-time Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) measurement, the nano-TiO2 displayed promoting effect on the crosslinking of polyester resin with triglycidyl isocyanurate (TGIC) as crosslinking agent. Moreover, the gloss retention, colour aberration and the surface morphologies of the composites during accelerated UV ageing (1500 hours) were investigated. The results demonstrated much less degree of ageing degradation for the nanocomposites, indicating an important role of the nano-TiO2 in improving the ageing-resistant properties of synthetic polymer composites.
Highlights
Ultra-violet (UV) radiation is a cytotoxic waveband of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface [1]
The result indicates that the organic functional groups were grafted to the nano-TiO2 during the surface modification
The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), contact angle and Dynamic light scattering spectrum (DLS) measurements demonstrated a linkage of organic functional groups to the nano-TiO2, resulting in improved agglomeration resistance
Summary
Ultra-violet (UV) radiation is a cytotoxic waveband of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface [1]. The exposure of polymers to UV radiation may produce degradation discoloration and/or brittle fracture [5]. This is due to the UV irradiation-induced chemical reactions such as chain scission, crosslinking, oxidation or bond cleavage in the polymers [6,7,8]. All these damages may be undesirable due to their adverse impacts on the safety of organisms and the period of use of polymers. The smaller size leads to higher values of surface area which presents high surface energy and activity, so the nanoparticles tend to form agglomeration [18,19,20]
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