B. Benobeidallah1, A. Benhamida1, A. Dorigato2,*, A. Sola3, M. Messori3, A. Pegoretti2
Journal of Renewable Materials, Vol.7, No.1, pp. 89-102, 2019, DOI:10.32604/jrm.2019.00136
Abstract Various amounts (up to 10 wt%) of palygorskite nanofibers functionalized by 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) coupling agent were used to reinforce polyamide 11 nanocomposites prepared by melt compounding. The covalent bonding of the silane on the palygorskite surface was confirmed by infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. X-ray diffraction revealed the retention of the α-form of polyamide crystals upon the addition of both natural and silane treated palygorskite nanorods. All the investigated nanocomposites showed an improvement of the thermal stability, especially when surface treated palygorskite nanofibers were considered. Tensile tests and dynamic mechanical thermal analyses on the prepared More >