Hydrolytic degradation of montmorillonite/poly(ε-caprolatone)-based polyurethane nanocomposites

POLY 204

Eun Hwan Jeong, clioman@nate.com, Hyun Jeong Jeon, polygirl@inhaian.net, Tae Gon Kim, 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
In this study, poly(ε-caprolactone)-based polyurethane cationomer (PCL-PUC) containing 3 mol% of quaternary ammonium groups were synthesized and used as a matrix polymer of montmorillonite (MMT) nanocomposites. For all of the MMT/PCL-PUC nanocomposites, the MMT was successfully exfoliated and well dispersed in the PCL-PUC matrix up to 7 wt% of MMT. The phase separation of the MMT/PCL-PUC nanocomposites was retarded with increasing the content of MMT due to strong interactions between the PCL-PUC chains and the exfoliated MMT layers. The hydrolytic degradation of these nanocomposites was dramatically increased with increasing content of MMT.