Preparation and characterization of cationic polyurethane/montmorillonite nanocomposites

POLY 137

Eun Hwan Jeong, clioman@nate.com, Tae Gon Kim, taegony2000@hanmail.net, Han Sup Lee, hslee@inha.ac.kr, and Ji Ho Youk, youk@inha.ac.kr. Department of Advanced Fiber Engineering, Inha University, 253 Yonghyun-dong, Nam-gu, Incheon, 402-751, South Korea
Polyurethanes (PUs) have some disadvantages such as thermal instability and poor gas barrier properties. Montmorillonite (MMT)/polymer nanocomposites have recently attracted a great deal of attention because of improvement in mechanical, thermal, and gas barrier properties of the polymer matrix. In this study, in order to improve the exfoliation of MMT in PU matrix, small amounts of quaternary ammonium groups were introduced into the PU backbone instead of using organic cationic modifiers. MMT/CPU nanocomposites were prepared by the solution intercalation method and it was found that most of the MMT was well exfoliated and dispersed in the CPU matrix up to 7 wt% of MMT. Young's moduli of the MMT/CPU nanocomposites were significantly increased with increasing the content of MMT, but the thermal stability of the CPU was slightly enhanced.