Preparation and Properties of Poly (Silicon-Containing Arylacetylene)/Attapulgite Foams

Abstract

Poly(silicon-containing arylacetylene) (PSA) syntactic foams were prepared by thermally expandable microspheres (EM) in the silicon-containing arylacetylene (SA) resin during curing. The morphology, porosity, thermal and mechanical properties of the foams were studied. Furthermore, the PSA foam was reinforced by attapulgite (ATT) nanoparticles to fabricate the PSA/ATT composite foam. The results display that the density, compressive strength and thermal stability of the PSA foam decrease with increasing EM content in the matrix, but the temperature at 5% weight loss in N2 is still higher than 560°C, and the residual yield at 800°C is larger than 89%. With addition of 10 g ATT in the 100 g matrix, the average specific compressive and flexural strength of PSA/ATT foam are 31.4 MPa g-1cm3 and 33.6 MPa g-1cm3, respectively. The thermal conductivity of the composite foam can decrease to 0.064 W m-1 K-1 and has a density of 319 kg m-3.