Effect of Electron Beam Irradiation on Gas-barrier Property of Biaxially Drawn Nylon/Montmorillonite Nanocomposite Films
- PDF / 2,283,716 Bytes
- 7 Pages / 595 x 842 pts (A4) Page_size
- 39 Downloads / 211 Views
Article www.springer.com/13233 pISSN 1598-5032 eISSN 2092-7673
Effect of Electron Beam Irradiation on Gas-barrier Property of Biaxially Drawn Nylon/Montmorillonite Nanocomposite Films Je Sung Youm1 Jong-Jin Park2 Jeong Cheol Kim*,1
1 2
Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, 6 Cheomdan-gwagiro 208gil, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61012, Korea
Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Chonnam National University, 77 Yongbong-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61186, Korea Received January 7, 2020 / Revised March 26, 2020 / Accepted May 6, 2020
Abstract: This study aimed to improve the properties, such as tensile strength and gas barrier properties, of nylon/montmorillonite nanocomposite films for them to be better suited for packaging applications. In this study, organic/inorganic nanocomposite films were fabricated by melt compounding with a twin-screw extruder using a polyamide (m-xylene diamine 6 nylon; MXD6) as the polymer matrix and organic nanoclay (montmorillonite; MMT) as a filler. An electron beam (EB) was irradiated onto the fabricated nanocomposite film and its effects on the film properties were examined. Biaxial drawing and annealing were conducted after EB irradiation to investigate the orientation of molecular chains and crystallization. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that the clay nanoparticles were finely dispersed in the polymer matrix. Furthermore, the EB irradiation-induced polymer crosslinking was verified by measuring the gel content in the films. Finally, the thermal properties of the film were verified by differential scanning colorimetry (DSC), and the light transmittance was examined using a UV-visible spectrophotometer. Application of the sequential process of EB irradiation, biaxial drawing, and annealing on the MXD6/MMT-5 wt% nanocomposite films increased their tensile strength by 56% and decreased thermal shrinkage by 26%, with a minimal loss of the optical transparency. Increasing both nanoclay contents and draw ratios resulted in improved oxygen-gas barrier properties. In particular, the gas barrier property of the MXD6/ MMT-5 wt% film approximately doubled compared with that of the untreated specimen. The thermal analysis by DSC revealed that the crystallinity decreased because of the addition of MMT and the EB irradiation. Keywords: electron beam, EB, Nylon, polyamide, montmorillonite, gas barrier, nanocomposite film, biaxial drawing.
1. Introduction When organic/inorganic composites are formed from polymer and inorganic particles, a micron-scale inorganic filler is typically added in a concentration of 15-40%; however, when the inorganic particles are on a nano-scale, the properties and functions of the resulting composite materials can be significantly improved, even at concentrations as low as 5 wt%.1 The addition of small amounts of properly dispersed layered nanosilicate in the polymer matrix results in a significantly greater surface area relative to volume—compared to composites with micron-scale fillers— and increased interfacial interactions between polymer-nanoparticle or nano
Data Loading...
