Inorganic Fillers In Polymer Matrix Research Articles

Recent Progress on the Confinement, Assembly, and Relaxation of Inorganic Functional Fillers in Polymer Matrix during Processing.

Functional polymer composites have gained extensive interest due to their wide range of applications. Various functionalities are mainly provided by functional fillers and their networks in polymer matrix. Therefore, morphology control on filler network has important influence on the final functionalities. The confinement, assembly, and relaxation of inorganic functional fillers in polymers are thought as the basic issues related to such control. Processing as the means to achieve the desired shape and properties for materials often involves strong temperature and shear field, among other factors-not to mention the complex interaction between polymer and filler. These processing fields and interactions during processing are reported to have profound influence on the confinement, assembly, and relaxation of inorganic fillers in polymer matrix. Therefore, various functionalities could be significantly affected by processing. This paper is a review of recent developments in this area.

Electro-mechanical properties of free standing micro- and nano-scale polymer-ceramic composites for energy density capacitors

The integration of inorganic fillers in polymer matrix is useful for superior mechanical strength and functional properties of polymer-ceramic composites. We report the fabrication and characterization of polyvinylidene fluoride-CoFe2O4 (PVDF-CFO) (wt% 80:20, respectively) and PVDF-Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3–CoFe2O4 (PVDF-PZT-CFO) (wt% 80:10:10, respectively) free standing 50 μm thick ferroelectric-polymer-ceramic composites films. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns and Raman spectra revealed the presence of major semi-crystalline β-PVDF along with α-phase which is responsible for ferroelectric nature in both the composite systems. Ferroelectric, dielectric and mechanical strength measurements were performed in order to evaluate the effects of CFO and PZT inorganic fillers in PVDF matrix. The inclusion of CFO and PZT micro-/nano-particles in PVDF polymer matrix improved the polarization behavior, dielectric properties and mechanical strength. The energy density was calculated by polarization-electric field hysteresis loop and found in the range of 6–8 J/cm3 may be useful for microelectronics.

Structural and Electrochemical Properties of Nanocomposite Polymer Electrolyte for Electrochemical Devices

This report describes the structural and electrochemical properties of the nanocomposite polymer electrolyte (70PEO:30AgI) incorporating SiO2 filler of different weight percentage (wt %) ranging between 1 and 10 wt %. Studies on inorganic filler in polymer matrix may be quite familiar, but the chosen polymer, the effect of concentration exhibiting the highest conductivity, and its use for capacitor studies are novel and are studied with the aid of impedance spectroscopy. The optimum composite composition (OCC) of 5 wt % loading, 95(70PEO:30AgI):5SiO2, exhibited the best performance of conductivity (σ ∼ 2.50 × 10–3 S/cm) and a low activation energy of 0.1 eV. The impedance, capacitive, and other structural behavior of the polymer electrolyte validated the proposed conceptual idea. The conductivity enhancement has been well-correlated with the change in structure and morphology of the polymer electrolyte, suggesting that the amorphous domain is found to be suitable for solid-state capacitor applications.

Gas separation properties of ZIF-8/6FDA-durene diamine mixed matrix membrane

Mixed matrix membranes of ZIF-8 as inorganic filler in polymer matrix of synthesized 6FDA-durene diamine was developed in this work. Pure gas permeation for the gases CO2, CH4, N2, and O2 and mixed gas of CO2/N2 was carried out at 2 and 6bar for single gas and 2.6bar for mixed gas using the mixed matrix membrane of ZIF-8/6FDA-durene diamine in different inorganic filler loading. The homogenous dispersion of ZIF-8 particles in polymer confirmed by SEM result in dramatic increase in gas permeability for all tested gases and significant increase in CO2 permeability from 1468 Barrer to 2185 Barrer corresponding to pure polymer membrane and 30wt% loaded ZIF-8 mixed matrix membrane at 2bar feed gas pressure, respectively. However a loss in both CO2/N2 and CO2/CH4 selectivity was observed. Incorporation of inorganic fillers in membrane results in increment of decomposition temperature of mixed matrix membranes while no significant change in Tg was observed.

Improved performance of PDMS/ceramic composite pervaporation membranes by ZSM-5 homogeneously dispersed in PDMS via a surface graft/coating approach

A homogeneous dispersion of inorganic fillers in polymer matrix is a primary challenge for the advancement of mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) in pervaporation and gas separation. In this work, a surface graft/coating approach was developed for homogeneously dispersing ZSM-5 zeolite in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) for preparing ZSM-5 filled PDMS mixed matrix/ceramic composite membranes. Molecular dynamics simulations were carried out to calculate the interaction energy between zeolite and PDMS. It was found that surface modification of zeolite particles could highly improve their interaction with PDMS matrix. The SEM images confirmed the uniform dispersions of surface-modified ZSM-5 particles in PDMS matrix even at highest zeolite loading of 40 wt.%. As revealed in the FT-IR analysis and contact angle measurements, the prepared ZSM-5 filled PDMS membranes exhibited less hydroxyl groups and became more hydrophobic with increasing zeolite loading. The pervaporation experiment in 5 wt.% ethanol–water solution indicated that the homogeneously incorporated ZSM-5 particles improved the selectivity of PDMS membrane, and the separation factor of surface-modified ZSM-5 filled PDMS membrane increased gradually with zeolite loading. This effective dispersion method could be instructive for the fabrication of organic–inorganic composite materials.